Latest "Chiefs For Change" Fail: Bowen in ME #2

I just posted about Maine "Chief For Change," Stephen Bowen, and how he's had to back off on plans - written by his patron, Jeb! Bush - to fast-track for-profit virtual charter schools into the state.

Before we move on to another state and another CFC Fail, however, let's take a moment to enjoy the twisted logic of Commissioner Bowen:

Second, the Press Herald seems to feel that the new A-F grading system suffers from a fatal flaw because it does not discriminate between schools in more affluent areas of the state and those in less affluent areas. The paper seems to suggest that the department should have developed a grading system with one set of performance standards for wealthy areas and a second, presumably lower, set of standards for poorer areas.

Developing such a two-tier system was never a consideration for the administration, however, for the simple reason that we don't share the Press Herald's view that students in less affluent communities are necessarily destined, by virtue of where they live, to struggle in school.

There is, of course, a correlation, well supported in the research and illustrated by the grading system, between the income and education levels of families and the academic achievement of their children. There are also plenty of examples, however, in Maine and across the nation, of schools in very poor communities achieving extraordinary results for the students they serve.

All the negative press about how the new grading system is unfair to poor communities ignores the fact that a number of schools in poor communities across Maine earned an A or B in our grading system. Nearly 80 percent of the students attending Phillips Elementary School, for instance, qualify for free or reduced-price school lunch, yet the school earned an A for its students' high achievement. [emphasis mine]

There are layers and layers of reformy illogic to dig through here:

- If the correlation between income and education levels is "illustrated by the grading system,"how can you say for sure you're measuring school effectiveness, and not poverty levels?

Here's a tool that shows the correlation between student poverty and Maine's school grading system. The high school results:

And the elementaries (annotation mine):

It appears that Maine's school grades are strongly correlated to poverty levels for those schools.

We've seen this before:

There is a reason why over 97 percent of Florida’s lowest-poverty schools receive A or B grades, and virtually every one of the schools receiving a D or F have poverty rates above the median. It’s because schools are judged largely by absolute performance, and students from higher-income families tend to score higher on tests.

Same thing in Ohio. And Indiana (outstanding work here, as always, by Matt DiCarlo). 

I suppose Bowen would argue that, because the Maine school evaluation system uses both "growth" and "absolute performance" to judge schools, it wouldn't have as strong a correlation between poverty and performance. We'll leave aside the fact that there is substantial evidence that there is a correlation between poverty and "growth" (contrary to the statements of Bowen's fellow CFC, New Jersey's Chris Cerf); the problem remains the same:

If you aren't judging schools on absolute performance to begin with, aren't you in effect admitting high-poverty schools should be judged differently than low-poverty schools?

- Outliers are not proof that causation doesn't exist. This is one of the greatest hits of reformy types like the CFCs, and it needs to be put down once and for all: the existence of an outlier does not disprove a causal effect between two variables. For example:

• There is a correlation between between smoking and cancer rates.
• But there are some people who smoke and don't get cancer.
• Therefore, smoking doesn't "cause" cancer.

Yes, we hear it all the time from the reformy side: "correlation is not causation." But you can't just throw away mounds of inferential evidence because you found a few outliers; that's irresponsible and irrational. Even if Phillips Elementary appears to "beat the odds," that's no reason to believe that Bowen's A-F school grading system isn't biased.

Further, if you're going to investigate why an outlier outperforms its expectations, you have to be rigorous; you can't just say, "They're awesome!" and be done with it. Phillips Elementary does, indeed, do better than the school grading trend-line - the question is "how?" Is it really a superior school? Or is this the result of statistical noise or bias? Is the data used for grading not accurate or precise enough?

Bowen doesn't want to venture a guess, but maybe he should take a look at the school's demographic profile:

Special Education: 13.64%
(State Average Demographics, Grades K-8 Special Education: 13.9%)  

Free/Reduced-Price Lunch: 70.7%
(State Average Demographics, Grades K-8 Free/Reduced-Price Lunch: 48.72%)  

Limited English Proficiency: 0%
(State Average Demographics, Grades K-8 Limited English Proficiency: 2.15%) 

Location: Phillips, Maine
Enrollment: 154

So, yes, Phillips has more kids in poverty than the average for Maine, but no kids who are LEP. And it's a tiny school - 154 kids for grades K through 8. A population that small - a school that had 13 Eighth Grade students in 2010-11 - could easily be subject to significant swings in test scores year-to-year.

Again: how did Phillips get a good grade in spite of it's large FRPL population? What can be learned here that can be broadly applied across the state? Unless and until Bowen is prepared to give a serious answer, he ought not to be holding up any outlier as proof that his school grading system is fair.

- There is very little evidence that an A-F grading system will help "failing" schools improve substantially. Earlier this week, I blogged about Matthew Ladner - writing for Jeb!'s FEE website - and his contention that research shows Florida's A-F school grading system has improved low-performing schools. I found the evidence Ladner presented, based on the NAEP, to be very weak, but he also included a reference to a paper from the Urban Institute that purports to show real gains in test scores when a school is hit with a grade of "F."

However, as one of my commenters pointed out:

Am I reading this wrong or does the Urban Institute report at best, in math, give the grading system credit for 38% of a 6 to 14% of a SD gain? So... a 2% to 5% SD gain? They're hanging their hat on that?

Go to pages 4 and 5 of the report, and you'll see my commenter is correct about the reported gains and how they were attributed to the A-F accountability system. This is very weak tea, and it's certainly not indicative of any real, practical improvements in instruction.


So, no, there's no reason to think Stephen Bowen's school grading method is fair toward schools with higher levels of poverty. There's no reason to think it will help improve Maine's schools. And there's no reason to think chanting "poverty is not destiny" over and over again is going to make the correlation between income and test scores go away.

And if there's no reason to think any of this in Maine, there's no reason to think it in any of the other little educational fiefdom's Jeb!'s Chiefs For Change have set up for themselves.

Data gives me a headache...

Latest "Chiefs For Change" Fail: Bowen in ME

For the next installment of our "Chiefs For Change Fail" series, let's head up north to Maine, where the very reformy Stephen Bowen has had to confront the reality that his push for virtual learning is hardly universally popular:

A group of digital-education experts is recommending that Maine create an online directory to help school districts and teachers find, choose and write reviews of digital learning resources. 

But the 17-member group's report and "digital learning strategy" is most notable for what it doesn't recommend: the sweeping policy changes advocated by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education, which seek to remove a range of state restrictions and limitations on how digital learning products are accessed, supervised and funded. 

The six-page report, overseen and composed by Maine Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen, suggests that Gov. Paul LePage's administration has slowed its effort to implement the controversial provisions of the Bush foundation's Digital Learning Now! initiative. [emphasis mine]

Jeb!'s FEE is, of course, nothing more than a front for the education-industrial complex, especially the virtual learning sector. FEE has basically written the legislation in Maine that would have opened the floodgates to virtual schools, which have a terrible track record nationwide.

Well, unlike many other states, at least the Democrats in Maine have figured out that giving buckets of money to the Tisch family so they can slap up "schools" with no requirements for instructional time or class size is probably a losing proposition with the voters:

The nation's two largest online-education companies -- K12 Inc. and Connections Learning -- have been seeking to manage virtual charter schools in Maine, but have been rebuffed by the Maine Charter School Commission.

Virtual charter schools -- which are funded by taxpayers -- have a poor record nationally. In other states, K12 Inc. has faced investigations and the revocation of charters for some of its schools.

In party-line votes Monday, the Legislature's Education Committee recommended passage of bills that would impose a moratorium on virtual charter schools and effectively ban for-profit charter schools.

Of course, you can count on Governor Paul LePage to veto any such moratorium; after all, that's why K12 Inc. pays him the big bucks.

Unfortunately for LePage and Bowen, all that campaign money, and all that lobbying by K12, can't change the sad fact that virtual schooling is a disaster that the voters do not want to support. And they can try to back away from it now, saying they're "slowing down" because "there's more work to be done," but that won't change the fact that cyber charters suck.

If LePage and Bowen want to keep their jobs, they're going to have to decide who they are loyal to: Jeb! Bush, the Tisches, and K12 Inc....

... or the taxpayers and students of Maine.

If Bowen puts the students' needs first, how can I make any money?!

Latest "Chiefs For Change" Fail: Skandera in NM

Jeb! Bush's "Chiefs For Change" are a group of state-level education chiefs that few educators, administrators, parents or public officials seem to like or trust. The reaction to their autocratic, reformy ways is a pretty good barometer of how the corporate reform movement is being received.

Thus, a new series here at the Jazzman: "Chiefs For Change" Fail. Let's begin with Hanna Skandera out in New Mexico:

DPNM Chair Sam Bregman called for Secretary-Designate Skandera to tender her resignation immediately, as unqualified, un-confirmable and for her unprecedented attempt to ignore the New Mexico State Senate and confirm herself as Secretary of the New Mexico Public Education Department.

“Governor Martinez has nominated a polarizing, partisan consultant as Public Education Secretary.  Ms. Skandera is unqualified, cannot get confirmed after three legislative sessions and has set herself above the law, ignoring the authority of the New Mexico State Legislature. She has bestowed the title ‘Secretary of Education’ upon herself because she dislikes the process.  This display of arrogance is a flagrant abuse of power and indicates the disdain Ms. Skandera and Governor Martinez have for the legislature and the laws of New Mexico.  Ms. Skandera should resign now,” stated Chairman Bregman.

Currently, the two nominees for state cabinet departments, David Martin, Energy and Minerals and Ryan Flynn, Department of the Environment, are following state law and using secretary-designate for their job titles. [emphasis mine]

But they don't have Jeb! backing them! After all, he's a Bush! And laws are for little people...

I always told the boys: "Don't waste your beautiful mind with pesky details like the law!"

Once Again, Chris Christie Is a Massive Fraud

Absolutely unbelievable:  

Gov. Chris Christie has warned potential investors there is no guarantee the state will make its required pension payments in future years, an admission that underscores a looming financial crisis he and future governors face as retirement costs are expected to explode before the decade ends.

The disclosure, buried in a 156-page bond prospectus for investors, also casts doubt on one of the key commitments Christie and leading Democrats made to public employees as part of the 2011 health and pension reform: Workers would shoulder a greater share of pension costs in exchange for the state making required payments to the cash-strapped pension fund.

The Christie administration warned potential investors earlier this month that future pension payments — estimated to grow from $1.7 billion next year to about $5.5 billion by 2018 — will drain resources and "create a significant burden on all aspects of the State’s finances."

"No assurances can be given as to the level of the State’s pension contributions in future fiscal years," the prospectus reads. [emphasis mine]

Literally, lies after lies from this utter fraud of a man. Start at the header of this blog with Chris Christie's promise to teachers and other public workers from his 2009 campaign:

* I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your pension is going to change when I am governor. In fact, in order to ensure your retirement savings are safe, I believe we must prioritize the protection of pension fund dollars and investigate the cause of Jon Corzine’s large investment losses to our pension system. Currently there is a $34 billion deficit in the State’s pension fund, which threatens the retirement and lifeline of so many teachers. We must do better for our teachers, future teachers and retirees. As Governor, I will work to close unfunded liabilities and make sure our state lives up to its promises, unlike Jon Corzine. I will not raid your pension fund to cover budgetary shortfalls like previous governors of both parties have done. One of the changes I will bring to Trenton is responsible management, investment, and oversight of state pension dollars. [emphasis mine]

That was the first lie; Christie did, in fact, change teachers' and cops' and frefighters' pensions, increasing our payments and getting rid of cost-of-living increases. Then he didn't follow up on his promise to "close unfunded liabilities":

The state should be paying about $3.3 billion into the pension fund this year, but will kick in about $468 million. And in the budget for fiscal 2013, the state will only pay about $900 million of its $3 billion bill, records show.

As part of a measure that passed in 2010, the state will increase its payments by one-seventh each year over the next seven years.

Experts have compared this with a homeowner who takes out a mortgage and makes only partial payments for seven years. Then, after those seven years, the missed payments are added and the homeowner is saddled with a much bigger mortgage and higher monthly payments. [emphasis mine]

Over and over again, as Christie was selling this scam, he told public workers he was really on their side - he had to make these "tough choices" to save our pensions:

Gov. Chris Christie fought tooth and nail for reforms while his Democratic challenger State Sen. Barbara Buono voted against the bill.

“By daring to be bold and take on the risks of addressing the big issues, we are doing what was once unimaginable; saving billions of dollars for taxpayers, fixing these systems in order to save them, and providing real, long-term fiscal stability for future generations of New Jerseyans,” said Christie the day he signed the pension and health benefit reform legislation into law. [emphasis mine]

But now, when the real tough decisions have to be made, what does Christie do? Renege on his promises while talking out of both sides of his mouth: 

Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak provided The Star-Ledger with several examples where identical warnings were included in previous bond prospectuses dating back to at least 2009, calling it a standard disclosure.

“The language referred to is standard disclosure language that is identical to bond offerings disclosures going back to at least 2009 and the Corzine administration,” Drewniak said. “It is because we cannot tie the hands of, or commit future legislatures or governors’ actions that we are obligated to include such language.”

Oh, I see: in other words, you don't really mean what you say in the bond documents. You admit the Christie administration is lying.

Good to know...

He said Christie is the first governor in many years to fund the pension plans. Christie agreed to begin making required payments, but phased in over seven years. His proposed budget includes $1.7 billion for pensions which would make good on the phased-in payments for the third consecutive year. Actuaries say a full payment for the next budget year should be about $4 billion.

First of all, let's say this straight up: Michael Drewniak, Christie's spokesman, is a big, fat liar:

Jon Corzine, whatever his faults, was the first governor in a decade to fund the pensions. Any reporter who doesn't call Drewniak on his horsecrap isn't doing his or her job.

More important, however, is that no one in the press seems to be interested - in this election year - in getting Christie's plan on the record, once and for all, to come up with the $5.5 billion a year he's going to need starting in 2018 to fund the pensions.

Let's face it: he has no intention of following through on this promise. Christie is going to hem and haw and tap dance and yell at "town halls" and preen and walk dignitaries around down the shore...

But what Chris Christie will never, ever do is clearly state a credible plan to make the pension payments he promised would "save" the system and "save taxpayers $120 billion." Because he doesn't have a plan.

Chris Christie may be the darling of the Morning Joe set and the NJ-101.5 crowd and his pension plan may have been beloved by the Star-Ledger editorial page. But the honest truth is that the man is a complete fraud.

Texans who knew the truth used to say that George W. Bush was "all hat, no cattle." In the same way, Chris Christie is an empty fleece.

Karen Lewis for CTU President

Up until now, I've stayed out of the internal politics of teachers unions. I outlined my many reservations about the Newark contract, but I didn't feel it was right to tell teachers to vote it up or down. I had my preferences in the New York City teachers union elections as well, but I kept my mouth shut, because I didn't think I had anything to add that was helpful.

But I'm going to make an exception today: Chicago teachers, please re-elect Karen Lewis as the President of the Chicago Teachers Union.

No one has done more to make unions relevant again than Karen Lewis. The Chicago teachers strike was a wake-up call to monied corporate interests everywhere; they learned, the hard way, that organized working people are a force not to be trifled with. That strike never would have happened without the brains, skills, and resolve of Lewis.

Chicago teachers, you need someone who is going to stand toe-to-toe with the likes of the obnoxious and odious Bruce Rauner and the insufferably smug and hypocritical Rahm Enamuel. Karen Lewis has proved, time and again, that she is not in the slightest bit intimidated by these foes of the working class and Chicago's children.

Now, I'm all for a spirited campaign with a sincere debate about the record of the incumbent. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be what Chicago's teachers are getting:

During the contract negotiations last summer, Karen Lewis established the "Big Bargaining Team," and designed it to be inclusive. That team included Tanya Saunders Wolffe and Mark Ochoa. Today, both of them are claiming that the CTU leadership failed to negotiate a "moratorium" on school closings. But they didn't mention that during the months they were actually with the union's leadership at the bargaining table. Nor have they admitted, although they will soon have to, that it was illegal for the Chicago Teachers Union to bargain over school closings (a management right) unless CPS agreed to it, and CPS didn't. [emphasis mine]

It's really easy for these Monday morning quarterbacks to come in and complain that Lewis didn't get them everything they think they deserve. But there's little doubt, give the dysfunction of the CTU before Lewis took over, that things would have been far, far worse were she and her team not at the reins. Lewis's CORE slate has shown they can get the job done; the other side may (or may not) mean well, but they simply aren't ready for the big game.

And if you need further proof that the plutocrats are afraid of Lewis, simply look at the fawning treatment Lewis's opponent has received from corporate media shills like the Chicago Tribune and Fox News. For me, that alone is enough reason to vote for Lewis.

Chicago teachers, I hope you understand how lucky you are to have this woman as your local's president. I hope you understand how many teachers outside of Chicago wish they had a strong labor leader willing to stand up for their rights. I hope you appreciate what Lewis means to the rest of us outside of Chicago. I saw Lewis speak to a group of teachers in New York City, and it was like watching a rock star; she is that beloved, and she is that good.

Do yourself a favor, Chicago: vote Karen Lewis and the CORE slate this Friday.

ADDING: Like me, Fred Klonsky wishes he taught in Chicago, if only so he could vote for CORE.

Think-Tanky Thinking

Dr. Matthew Ladner is undoubtedly a very smart guy. I'm sure that's why Jeb! Bush's Foundation for Educational Excellence pays him to write blog posts that bolster Jeb!'s preferred policies:

I had the opportunity to discuss A-F school grading with a thoughtful skeptic yesterday. Sadly my doubting Thomas remained a skeptic at the end of our discussion.  I showed him data about the trend for improving grades in Florida, and he produced data to show improving fuzzy labels from his state. I told him that Florida’s progress is confirmed by improving NAEP data, whereas his state has flatlined on NAEP over the last decade despite improved state scores. He wasn’t buying it.

My failure to persuade however got me to thinking about the Trial Urban District Assessment NAEP data. I ran the proficiency numbers for free and reduced lunch eligible students in all the districts and found the following for 4th grade reading:

Note that the top 3 performers all operate under an A-F school grading system Hillsborough (Tampa), Miami-Dade and New York City (NYC has operated under A-F longer than any non-Florida district). Obviously there are plenty of other factors at play than school grading, but note that a poor child in Tampa is almost six times more likely to be reading at a proficient level than a poor child in Detroit.

Everyone got the premise? See, Florida (thanks to Jeb!) and New York City (thanks to mediocre-at-best former chancellor Joel Klein) grade their schools - we're not talking about the kids, but the schools - on an A to F scale. And while Ladner generously grants that maybe a few other things matter in student achievement than school-level accountability systems, he clearly believes we have strong evidence here that the A-F school grading system improves student learning.

Let's set aside any doubts we may have that the National Assessment for Educational Progress gives us evidence, by itself, of the efficacy of any particular educational policy. Let's not worry about the big demographic differences between these school districts. We'll even throw away the fact that Ladner chided his "thoughtful skeptic" for not paying attention to growth in scores, while he himself uses evidence that is merely cross-sectional.

Let's, instead, play around with the data a bit: you know, just for kicks. We'll start by going to the source, the NAEP Data Explorer. Can we replicate Ladner's chart, showing the reading proficiency rates for students eligible for Free and Reduced Price Lunch (FRPL) on the NAEP?

OK, it appears we can; we know we're using the same data set. To make things easier, I've highlighted Ladner's three "top performers" - the districts that use A-F school report cards - in red.

Now, Ladner only refers to reading scores in his post (for 4th and 8th grade, the two main grade levels reported by the NAEP). But the NAEP has two major tests: reading and math. How did the three A-Fers do?

Not quite as clear-cut now, is it? New York City is at the top, but Tampa took a hit, and Miami suffered a big drop. But hold on...

We're looking at proficiency rates for the NAEP; there are two problems with this. The first is that the definition of "proficiency" for this test is quite high; it's a mistake to equate it with the layman's definition of "proficiency," or the way the term is used on state-level tests. The second is that proficiency rates don't tell the entire story about a school district's performance. A proficiency rate is just a cut score: two districts with the same proficiency rate could have very different average raw scores.

Instead of proficiency rates, let's look at the average raw scores:

NYC moves down, and Ladner's hypothesis looks increasingly less likely. Of course, in Florida the A-F system is a statewide policy. How does the entire state fare against other states?

(I marked New York in red for consistency, but keep in mind that the A-F school evaluation system is not a statewide policy there; A-F is only used in New York City.)

One more issue: we're conflating Free Lunch eligibility with Reduced Price Lunch eligibility. That's a no-no; Free Lunch is a deeper level of poverty, and that matters when measuring student achievement on tests. The NAEP has some issues with disaggregating FRPL data (use caution when approaching the scores of the states with asterisks), but here are those scores when looking only at Free Lunch, and not Reduced Price Lunch, eligibility:

And so now we come to the heart of the matter: the burden of proof. Because it's one thing to play around with numbers and pose questions and even publish your musings; I do it all the time. That's good clean fun and a great way to put off mowing the lawn.

But that's not what Ladner is doing here. Instead, he's attempting to provide ammunition to those - like Jeb!'s FEE and Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst - who insist that A-F school report cards are a necessary policy change. And since he's taking the affirmative position, the burden of proof falls to him. He can't just pick and choose data that suits his fancy; he has to have a response to legitimate counterarguments, especially when they are based on the same data set he uses.

In this case, I don't think he'll have a response.

This, my friends, is a prime example of think-tanky thinking: define the policy you want first, pick the data you need to bolster your case, and simply ignore the counterarguments.

Again, I'm sure Matthew Ladner is a very smart guy. But when you live by the data, you gotta die by the data.

But I wanna pick my own data!

ADDING: Ladner cites a report by the Urban Institute to further back up his claims about the efficacy of A-F school reports. A critical review of this report, however, calls into question some of its claims. I recommend this review, written by - I can't believe this - Damien Betebenner.

Yeah, that Damian Betebenner. Ironical, ain't it?

What's REALLY Happening In Newark's Schools?

I've already written about Tom Moran's pig-headed view of Newark's charter schools, as demonstrated in his op-ed piece in Sunday's Star-Ledger.

Let me address something else from the article:

This council has a long history of crazy behavior. It pays itself the highest council salaries in the state, and each member is entitled to a free car, as well. One councilman compared the charter school movement to the Tuskegee experiments when black men were secretly infected with syphilis to study the progress of the disease. When a council meeting last year broke down in chaos, police had to spray mace to restore order. [emphases mine]

First of all, black men were NOT secretly infected with syphilis in the Tuskegee experiment; they already had syphilis, and were left untreated. This is a myth that has been repeated by prominent people many times.

The idea that "police had to spray mace to restore order" is not something everyone at the meeting would agree with. That aside, Moran doesn't mention why some council members were upset: they felt Mayor Cory Booker was pulling a fast one in a literal back-room deal. I'm no expert on Newark's politics, so I'm not about to say Booker was in the wrong. But the notion that things only get heated in Newark politics because everyone involved, save Booker, is "crazy" strikes me as more than a little paternalistic.

There is a common notion floating around the punditocracy that the state of New Jersey has been forced to act and take over Newark's schools because the city is dysfunctional. No one seems to notice, however, that the state has now run the district for nearly two decades. Just what are the results of this takeover?

• The schools have been underfunded for years now under the Christie administration, even as the state constitution precludes Newark from finding alternative sources of revenue for its schools. 
• Superintendent Cami Anderson was appointed by NJ Education Commissioner Chris Cerf, who himself is unelected, with no meaningful community input. Her lack of experience in running urban districts is, to the minds of many, disturbing.
• Anderson closed neighborhood schools in favor of (non-replicable) charter expansion against the wishes of the elected School Advisory Board.
• Under Anderson, the district has moved backwards in its quest to regain local control.
• Newark's schools have become a money funnel for cronies of Commissioner Cerf and Mayor Booker. Booker's most lavish backers, the Tisch family, have a vested interest in virtual charter expansion in Newark.
• The policies of the district are being dictated by a billionaire, Eli Broad, who lives 3000 miles away and bad-mouths the students of Newark.
• Another West Coast billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg, has thrown money around Newark to disenfranchise the local community and to push policies that seem designed primarily to improve his public image.
• Newark's parents have filed a suit challenging civil rights violations through school policies.
• Newark's students have walked out of class in protest of state-imposed budget cuts.
• Newark's teachers are calling for an audit of the district, tired of the lack of transparency from Anderson's administration.

Is it any wonder that people in Newark are angry? Does Tom Moran or anyone else think white suburban parents would sit by quietly while these injustices were visited upon their schools?

New Jersey may well have been right to step into Newark back in 1995. But they also should have implemented a plan to move Newark back to local control, just like the affluent suburban districts. The fact that Newark remains under the thumb of the state is a testament to the failure of state control.

It's not "crazy" to be angry about the state's long-term occupation of Newark's schools; in fact, I'd say it's crazy to not to be angry.

It doesn't bother me!

Tom Moran's Pig-Headed Ignorance

What do you do when someone in a position of influence refuses to see a basic truth over and over again? Like, for instance, the Star-Ledger's op-ed page editor Tom Moran, here speaking about Newark's  charter schools:

The best charter schools have waiting lists that stretch into the thousands. The council wants [Superintendent Cami] Anderson to block any expansions — and even bar the charter schools from even using empty classrooms in district schools.

And so we have yet another piece by Moran that implies that Newark's charters are "succeeding," without acknowledging the most basic fact about these schools:

Charter schools in Newark are not replicable on a large scale because they do not serve the same students as public schools.

I have explained this to Moran over and over and over and over and over again. I know for a fact he reads this blog (one day, maybe I'll tell the story of how I know this), yet he refuses to acknowledge the argument. The closest he's ever come was in a piece where he, once again, sang the praises of Anderson for doing things she hadn't yet done.

And if he doesn't want to listen to a crazy teacher-blogger, that's fine; how about a leading education researcher who has written about the segregation and attrition found in Newark's charters over and over and over and over again.

Sometimes even with pretty pictures that a child could understand!

As Bruce Baker says:

Misinformed charter punditry doesn’t help anyone. It doesn’t help the public to make more informed decisions either about choices for their own children or about policy preferences more generally. It also doesn’t help charter operators get their jobs done and it doesn’t help those working in traditional public schools focus on things that really matter. [emphasis mine]

That is exactly right, and it is a clarion call for Tom Moran - the man in charge of the op-ed page for the most widely-read newspaper in the state - to start stepping up his game. If Moran wants to make a counterargument, let him make it.

But this pig-headed, willful ignorance about what's really happening with Newark's charter schools has got to end.

Star-Ledger Editorial Board.

No One Trusts Jeb!'s "Chiefs For Change"

"Chiefs For Change" is a reformy group of state-level education leaders supported by Jeb! Bush*, the former Florida governor and current industry shill. They are pushing an agenda of test-based teacher evaluation, "revamped" school report cards, and charter expansion.

So how is the awesome leadership of the "Chiefs" being received by local school districts, educators, and elected officials? [all emphases mine]

Hanna Skandera, New Mexico:

In an unusual joint meeting Thursday of the Albuquerque and Rio Rancho school boards, members of both boards raised concerns about the costs, logistics, timeline and fairness of the state’s new teacher evaluation system.

No formal action was taken at the meeting, which consisted mainly of discussion. But board members did reach a consensus that administrators will draft a joint resolution to be sent to the Public Education Department. The boards will each meet separately to discuss and approve the resolution in the coming weeks.

It is still unclear exactly what the resolution will say, but, based on the board’s discussion, it will most likely ask [ACTING! Just because she doesn't say "acting" doesn't mean that she isn't! - JJ] state education chief Hanna Skandera to consider giving the districts more flexibility in how and when they implement the system. The resolution will likely ask Skandera or representatives from the Public Education Department to sit down with the districts and collaborate on a teacher evaluation plan that all are comfortable with.

[...]

Schlichte identified himself as a Republican and a supporter of Gov. Susana Martinez, but was sharply critical of the governor’s education reform program as a whole, and teacher evaluations in particular.

“I believe we’re being experimented on by an inexperienced practitioner,” he said.

Chris Cerf, New Jersey:

School administrators in New Jersey districts that tested a new ways to evaluate teachers are bullish on the changes, but teachers remain skeptical, according to a report from Rutgers University.

[...] 

The Rutgers study found that 74 percent of administrators in the test districts felt the new evaluations gave accurate assessments of teachers. But just 32 percent of teachers felt the same way.

There were also gaps in perceptions between teachers and administrators about whether the new efforts offered meaningful feedback or had positive impacts on their own, their colleagues' or their school's professional development.

More Cerf:

State officials released “performance reports” on every New Jersey public school Wednesday, saying new categories for student growth, absenteeism, success in advanced courses and other measures will give parents more information than the report cards of the past — and create more pressure for schools to improve. 

Some educators applauded the new format, but many complained the reports contained too many errors, misleading categories and unfair school-to-school comparisons. 

State Education Commissioner Chris Cerf – who acknowledged the reports have mistakes — has made overhauling their format a major project in his efforts to improve schools. While he intends to intervene aggressively in failing schools, he said parents, boards and superintendents elsewhere should use this data to find ways to address weaknesses in their districts. 

[...] 

North Jersey superintendents were in an uproar last month when they saw draft versions of the reports. Many found inaccuracies in the number of students taking Algebra I in middle school, Advanced Placement exams and PSAT tests — indicators that feed in to the summaries showing whether students are on the path toward college. Education Department officials said in some cases districts submitted wrong information to the state database, and in some cases errors came from third parties such as the College Board. 

John White, Louisiana:

A 14-minute telephone conversation that was recorded by an employee of the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE) has revealed a plan hatched between State Superintendent John White and State Rep. Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport) to “tweak” DOE’s Value Added Model (VAM) teacher evaluation plan in a way to keep changes from being public or necessitating policy change with the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE).

The date of the recorded conversation is unclear but a flurry of emails within DOE in mid-October of 2012 and again in mid-March of this year centered around changes to the VAM plan so the telephone conversation most probably took place a few days prior to the October interoffice communications.

After White agreed to make changes in the VAM—also known at the DOE as Compass—as suggested by Seabaugh, the employee who recorded the conversation over a speaker phone was heard to whisper to a co-worker that White “chewed my ass out” after she had earlier made similar suggestions to tweak VAM.

[...]

“Tweaking the formula was my initial suggestion,” Seabaugh agreed, “not addressing it legislatively.”

“I didn’t want to open the formula up to such scrutiny (unintelligible),” White said.

“I don’t care how you fix it,” Seabaugh said, adding that teachers had been calling his office and sending him emails and that they were “absolutely livid.”

More White:

Louisiana legislators grilled Commissioner of Education John White about the state’s decision to approve the largest number of voucher students (315) for a small religious school that lacked facilities or teachers. Many questions were raised about the state’s failure to do any site visits to ascertain the readiness of the school to accept new students. Questions were raised about the school’s tuition, which is less than what the state plans to pay out (and may be very much less, making the voucher program a windfall for the school).

White must have been embarrassed because he immediately started backtracking and claimed that the list of schools approved by the state was not really final (news to everyone) and that the state planned to do due diligence.

Tony Bennett, Florida:

Teachers in Florida filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday, claiming the state’s new teacher evaluation system is unfair because it partly rates their job performance on test scores of students they don’t know and subjects they don’t teach.

 

The lawsuit — backed by local teachers unions and their parent organization, the National Education Association — marks the first time teachers have brought a legal challenge to new evaluation systems that base compensation and job security on student scores.

[...]

When rolling out new teacher evaluation systems, school districts have faced a predicament: How do you judge teachers who educate students in grades that are not tested or in subjects the tests don’t cover? How do you use math and reading scores to evaluate an art teacher? 

Officials in Florida, Tennessee and the District decided to evaluate those teachers by using test scores of other teachers’ students. 

The Florida complaint cites the case of Kim Cook, a 22-year educator who teaches first grade at W.W. Irby Elementary in Alachua County. Because Irby is a school for children in kindergarten through second grade, its pupils are too young to take the state’s standardized test, known as the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

When it came time to rate the Irby teachers this year, the local school board decided that Cook and other teachers would be judged by the test scores of all fourth- and fifth-grade students in another elementary school.

“I never met or instructed the students at Alachua Elementary,” said Cook, one of seven teachers who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

The fourth- and fifth-graders at Alachua did not perform well on the standardized tests. Since 40 percent of Cook’s evaluation depended on those test scores, she was initially given an “unsatisfactory” rating at the same time her colleagues honored her as Teacher of the Year.

Stephen Bowen, Maine:

A week and a half of tension that began to mount last week with the release of an A-through-F grading system for public schools culminated Friday evening with Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen attacking Senate President Justin Alfond for delaying action on a sweeping teacher evaluation plan that has been under development for more than a year.

Alfond freely admitted he held the measure up because he and other Democratic leaders wanted to see what education initiatives Bowen and Gov. Paul LePage would unveil late in the legislative session on the heels of what Alfond called months of secrecy around destructive education initiatives by the administration. 

[...] 

“Because the governor and this commissioner have been so secretive and non-transparent with their education agenda, we felt it was only smart to ensure everything was on the table, like the A-through-F grading system, before we took up this bill,” said Alfond, referring to letter grades that the LePage administration gave all Maine schools last week. “We’re really glad we did that because we can now see so many elements of the department’s plans coming through.” 

[...] 

“This is the commissioner unfortunately following the governor and making everything political and everything into a lobbying effort,” said Alfond. “When it’s convenient for Commissioner Bowen to support education, he turns on the switch and when he wants to weaken the education system, which he has done repeatedly over the past week, he just throws a blind eye toward teachers and schools. It’s unfortunate that he is so political as a commissioner of education.”

Janet Barresi, Oklahoma (h/t to the always terrific Bob Sikes):

You need a scorecard to keep track of the outrages coming out of state Superintendent of Public Instruction Janet Barresi's office.  

The latest is that Barresi has been traveling the state telling anyone who would listen that authors of a new report critical of the controversial A-F grading system for schools have privately recanted.  

That, the authors say, is untrue. "I have no idea where that idea on the part of the superintendent came from," said senior project coordinator Patrick Forsyth, professor of education and co-director of the Oklahoma Center for Education Policy at the University of Oklahoma in Tulsa. "We are perplexed by that and don't know what to make of it." 

[...] 

The Legislature approved the A-F grading system but Barresi's department wrote the rules and imposed them with virtually no input from local school officials. Most local superintendents and principals don't oppose a grading system, but they want it to be consistent, fair and transparent.  

A report by senior researchers at OU and OSU concluded that the grading system is "neither clear nor comparable."  

It looks as if Barresi is traveling the state telling groups what she wants them to hear - that the report's authors are privately recanting their published work. 

That's poppycock.  

Barresi is a loose cannon whose dedication to Oklahoma public education continues to come into question. Look for a scapegoat for this latest foul-up. 

Deborah Gist, Rhode Island:

The overwhelming majority of Rhode Island’s public school teachers do not want Gov. Lincoln Chafee to extend Education Commissioner Deborah Gist’s contract, according to a poll released Tuesday by the state’s leading teachers unions.

The survey of 402 teachers shows 85% of those asked believe Gist’s contract should not be renewed. The poll also found that 73% of teachers find Gist to be “somewhat ineffective” or “infective” and another 82% feel less respected than they did when Gist was hired in 2009.

“For too long Commissioner Gist has spoken of her support among classroom teachers,” Frank Flynn, the president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals said in a prepared statement. “We decided to put that notion to an independent test. This survey found that she is not supported by classroom teachers. In fact, there is overwhelming evidence that her leadership is almost universally rejected.”

More Gist (h/t Diane Ravitch):

The truth is that the NECAP wasn’t designed to be a graduation test, and this was obvious from the very beginning. It has been coerced into the role not because it was good for kids, but because it was cheaper than designing a dedicated graduation test. The features that make it a bad graduation test are objectively true facts about the test and its design. Neither editing technical documentation, committee-hearing filibusters, or cutting off public comment at Board of Education meetings will change those facts.

I have no doubt at all that the commissioner can fend off challenges from the public over these matters, indefinitely. But reality will — as it usually does — have the last word. And children will pay the price. The question for Board of Education members, legislators, school administrators, teachers, and parents is which side they want to be on.

Kevin Huffman, Tennessee:

Nashville Democrats are piling on Tennessee Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman for his decision not to attend this afternoon’s special Metro school board meeting where controversial state charter authorizer legislation will be the focus. 

A Friday letter signed by Democratic Reps. Sherry Jones, Mike Stewart, Jason Powell and Darren Jernigan expresses “disappointment” over Huffman’s unwillingness to visit Metro’s Bransford Avenue boardroom at the invitation of the board. 

“Your office is less than four miles from those of the school board, which has simply requested an opportunity to have a conversation about recent press reports suggesting that the legislation poses extreme financial risks for our county,” the letter reads. “Participating in such a discussion would seem to us to be a matter of common courtesy, in addition to an important part of your job.”

More Huffman:

Over at WPLN, Daniel Potter has a story about the number of teacher retirements doubling in the last five years.

More Tennessee teachers are heading for the exits. Since 2008 the number is up by more than a thousand — nearly doubling — to a total last year of almost 2,200. Exactly why is a bit of a mystery.

Some teachers see it as a response to a couple years of politically charged upheaval in state education policy. But state officials say it’s not so clear-cut, and even go so far as to argue higher turnover has an upside.

You can already see the root of the silliness in these two paragraphs. Teachers are retiring. Teachers say that it's because of job upheaval. It would seem logical to believe teachers about why they're retiring or thinking about retiring. But no, our silly state asks us to ignore teachers' own statements about why they retire, and instead accept that those teachers are mistaken or lying or ... I don't know ... ignorant of their own motivations. The state can tell us the real truth: "The uptick in retirements might have less to do with shifting policy, says Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman, and more to do with the economy."

But, wait! It gets better. Because not only is Huffman going to try to sell us on his ability to know teachers' minds better than they know them themselves, Huffman is going to try to tell us all this retirement is a good sign — saying that "our lowest-performing teachers were retiring at twice the rate of our best-performing teachers.”

Twice the rate! Wow, that sounds like great news. Except Potter looks at the actual numbers, not the rate, and finds we're losing more good teachers than bad.

But it’s worth comparing more than just rates. In terms of real people, last year more top teachers retired — 129 of them, compared to 96 from the bottom. So even though 5s retired at a lower rate, there were still far more of them gone. State officials argue the rate is a more telling comparison, since in 2012 there were 6,704 teachers with 5s on the 1-to-5 scale, while 1s totaled just 2,644.

So, what conclusion are we to draw from our little state-to-state tour of the "Chiefs'" fiefdoms? How about this:

Jeb! Bush's "Chiefs For Change" are perhaps the most disliked, unaccountable, overly political, and untrusted public officials in the country.

Heckuva job, Jebbie!

Where did I find all these clowns?

*Why do I call him "Jeb!"?

Believe it or not, we called him "the smart one"!