The Echo

Dedicated to the dedicated.

Charter schools and unions around the country

Eugene, OR In 2008, employees at the Ridgeline Montessori Public Charter School voted to unionize after the forced resignation of one teacher and the reprimand of another, with hopes that a contract could better define due process and academic freedom. It became the first charter school in Oregon with an independent union.
Chicago, IL Teachers at Northtown Academy unionized after management unilaterally increased their teaching load and working hours. Their new contract offers a salary raise of 10 percent on average.
Norwich, CT The Integrated Day Charter School opened in 1997 as one of six NEA-endorsed charter schools around the country. “CEA offers so many resources to help teachers individually and collectively, from professional development workshops . to training on new regulations,” said a school founder.
The Bronx, NY This past summer, Green Dot opened a school in the Bronx, signing a 29-page contract with the United Federation of Teachers. It offers salaries about 14 percent higher than the rest of the city, but does not provide tenure.

Maybe "unionized charter school" is not a contradiction in terms.
By Mary Ellen Flannery

Abigail Garcia has a problem.

When Garcia, president of the Asociación de Unidos Maestros—the teachers union at Green Dot charter schools in Los Angeles—meets other union officials, they can’t believe she leads a “real” union. (The kind with teeth.) Everybody knows that charter schools kill unions, right?

No, no, no, we are a real union, she protests. And then off she goes to meet other charter school educators, who grimace at her union title. Because everybody also knows that unions kill charter schools, right?


“We are a progressive union! We believe in the Green Dot mission,” Garcia tells them. Innovation, small learning communities, increased accountability—and unionism: Is there a contradiction here? Garcia and her colleagues don’t think so. And neither do thousands of other NEA members in union charter schools from California to Connecticut.

Increasingly, their position—as union pioneers in an environment traditionally hostile to organized labor—isn’t so unusual. This past year has seen the conversion of well-known charter schools like KIPP Amp Academy in Brooklyn and Chicago International Charter School, both organized by the American Federation of Teachers, as well as new NEA affiliates at charter schools in New York and Pennsylvania.
And it’s not likely to stop there.

“You’re going to see more and more charter schools with union educators,” promises NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. “We’re going to hold them to the same high standards that every school should be held to, and they’re going to prove that innovation and unionism are best friends.”

With unionization come certain rights, teachers say. At the top of the list, teachers look less like interchangeable parts to their administrators and more like people who have a say in decisionmaking.

“We wanted to make sure somebody would speak for us,” says Carol Mintus, a teacher at Pennsylvania’s PA Learners Online, which unionized last year. “To not have somebody advocating for you, to not have a formal grievance process, to not have lawyers available to you—it’s really hard for me to imagine working without a union,” adds PALO teacher Joel Grimes.

That old handbook at the Pembroke Pines charter schools—the one that said the rules can be changed at any time? Not now. Not since its faculty voted 181 to 46 to join the Broward Teachers Union in 2007.

Charter school teachers in unions say their salaries have become more competitive, their benefits better defined, and their jobs more stable. Last year, a Vanderbilt University study found that charter school teachers were 132 percent more likely to leave the profession than their counterparts in regular public schools, and the odds of their switching schools was 76 percent higher. Union teachers say they’re less likely to go. They also say their students are succeeding—because better teaching conditions lead to better learning conditions.

But there’s very little data to show exactly how unionization impacts salary, working conditions, or student achievement. Those questions, and others, are the subject of research recently undertaken by the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE). While their current project remains very much a work in progress, a few common themes have emerged, says legal analyst Mitch Price.

“One, charter school unionization isn’t a single concept. It’s hard to talk about them as this or that because it really depends on the situation. Was the school unionized by law? (Some states and districts require it.) Was it unionized by design? (Like Green Dot, for example.) If it was unionized after years of operation, what were the reasons?”

Another common theme: What really matters is what’s in the contract. “Rather than, ‘is unionization good or bad,’ it’s going to be about particular contract provisions,” Price says. And that can vary widely. At Green Dot, teachers don’t care much about tenure, but they do want more power on school committees. In Buffalo, where the New York State United Teachers have organized eight of the city’s 15 charter schools, “each and every contract is unique,” NYSUT organizer Mike Deely says. Due process mattered a great deal at the one where eight teachers were summarily dismissed last year despite great evaluations.

“That union will ruin you.”

In 1997, four Connecticut teachers opened the charter Interdistrict School for Arts and Communica­tion (ISAAC) in New London. Their mission: To reduce racial and economic isolation and incorporate fieldwork, service learning, and, most of all, arts and communication.

“We don’t do worksheets,” says head teacher Kate Fioravanti.

Their findings: Success! ISAAC graduated its first class of eighth-graders in 2006 and its student body sailed from 45 to 280. But success breeds its own kinds of problems—and it became necessary to hire a director who had her own priorities. At the same time, while ISAAC teachers have never minded the 10-hour work days or duty lunches, they got to thinking that it might be nice to have such things as . say, family medical insurance.

Nearly five years ago, they joined the Connecticut Education Association (CEA) and bargained their first contract, which did include family medical and life insurance. Fioravanti recalls their director quit in a huff with this parting shot: “That union will ruin this school.”
Did it? Absolutely not.
“I don’t understand how anybody could think having an advocate could be harmful,” Fioravanti says. “Our relationship with CEA has brought new professionalism to the school.”

But that former director isn’t alone. There are charter school proponents who really don’t like you. That is, they don’t like Association members, not at their schools where they believe you’ll just ruin everything. Take the researcher who blogged about life in an imaginary unionized charter school: “Need to change a light bulb in your classroom? Page 844, paragraph five [of your contract] clearly states that you must call a union electrician. You kids sit quietly with your heads down in the dark until he arrives. It will be any day now.”

But there are extreme points of view on all sides of the charter school debate, Price says, and those extreme positions haven’t changed much in the past few years. What is changing, he says, “is that there is probably a growing number of people in the middle who are warming.”
And, in many places, the rhetoric isn’t nearly so heated. In Wisconsin, about 169 of the state’s 206 or so charter schools are unionized.

Where it’s warm

Abigail Garcia’s school, Ánimo Leadership Charter High School in Inglewood, California, is one of 19 high schools run by the Los Angeles-based charter school organization Green Dot. This year, for the third year in a row, it grabbed a spot near the top of the U.S. News and World Report list of 100 Best High Schools in America.
Its teachers don’t want a 1,200-page contract. In fact, the one they wrote is 33. And it doesn’t provide tenure—last year, six Green Dot teachers were let go and the union opposed none of those terminations. When students deserve better, they should get it, Garcia says. Green Dot teachers expect to work into the evening, staff after-school clubs, and mentor kids in quiet classrooms. “We call it a professional work day,” says Green Dot director of human resources Peter Kilmarx.
It’s an intense place to work, teachers agree. Expectations are high, and every teacher is held accountable for the success of their 100 percent minority, inner-city student body. But Alícia Gonzalez, a math teacher who came to Ánimo Leadership from a school with 3,000-plus kids, also found her new campus to have a real spirit of collaboration with a strong emphasis on professional development.
“My learning curve has shot way up,” she says.

Is it a real union? Definitely. The two sides bargain their contract—and it’s not all milk and honey. At a recent union meeting, AMU’s leaders sat in a classroom discussing the need for a stronger voice in school operations. Why should a principal be able to choose her budget priorities? Don’t classroom teachers know better what they need? “We want to see the budget, help frame the budget, and not just be told to buy our own LCD projector because there’s no money,” argued Monica Mayall, a teacher at one of Green Dot’s newly transformed Locke High School campuses.

There is a natural tension between any union and management, Green Dot’s Kilmarx notes. But the bottom line, he says, is that any relationship can work well “so long as we’re [all] motivated by what’s the right thing to do for students.”

We know that all students can learn when educators have the time, tools and support required to educate each of them in a way that lets them grow and flower. But that takes focus, determination and tough decision-making about what is most important. Having the funds to do this work, and a plan to make it happen, are simply not enough. Courage and will are required to achieve different, life-changing results for Delaware students.
 -Marvin Schoenals,Chairman Vision 2015, Chairman WSFS
 http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20109190323

Thanks, Skip, for the pep talk.  I really needed it.  With all these crack-pot ed reformers out there singing the praises of unproven and/or failed reforms and talking as if dipping into the trough might solve the all the worlds' problems, my own courage and will was starting to take a beating.  But, you've inspired me to dig in and continue to carry the banner for what is data and research proven - like smaller class sizes in K (or pre-K) through second to third grade. 

Let me introduce you to a rather thorough report: Class Size and Students At Risk: What is Known?...What is Next? - April 1998

Research on the Academic Effects of Small Class Size
The question "Are smaller classes better than larger classes?" continues to be debated among teachers (and their unions), administrators, and parents as well as in the research community. The issue persists because of the powerful common-sense appeal of small classes to alleviate problems indigenous to our classrooms. Small classes are an integral component of nationally subsidized programs including special education classes for disruptive or learning-disabled students and Title I interventions for children living in poverty. Small classes or small groups working with one teacher or tutor also are a key element of programs targeted most often at students at risk, for example, Success for All (Slavin, et al., 1990; Slavin & Madden, 1995) and Reading Recovery (Pinnell, deFord, & Lyons, 1988).

The issue persists because of the tension between the research findings and the cost of implementation. A great deal of empirical data have been collected. However, they have so far been less than convincing and not consistent enough to justify the expense of the additional classrooms and teachers that would be required. Targeted remedial programs are generally less costly and easier to deploy. They tend to be adopted for a portion of the school day to address learning problems in one or a small number of subject areas. In contrast, maintaining small classes throughout a grade level or school requires pervasive organizational changes. Of course, proponents would argue that the benefits are also pervasive--being realized throughout the school day and affecting the entire range of school subjects--unlike the band-aid approach of experimenting with one targeted program after another.
 

I hope you don't mind, I've underlined some key points above.  And here's some supporting findings:

Without doubt the most widely cited review is the classic Meta-analysis of research on the relationship of class size and achievement (Glass & Smith, 1978). The authors collected and summarized nearly 80 studies of the relationship of class size with academic performance that yielded over 700 class-size comparisons on data from nearly 900,000 pupils. The two primary conclusions drawn from this material are:

• reduced class size can be expected to produce increased academic achievement (p. iv); and
• [t]he major benefits from reduced class size are obtained as the size is reduced below 20 pupils (p. v).

Although the extensiveness of the Glass-Smith meta-analysis was commendable, the selection of studies to include was subject to justifiable criticism. A number of studies were of short duration; many compared normal-sized classes to one-on-one tutoring; other studies did not include "realistic" class sizes as their comparison groups; and at least one study related to instruction in non-academic subjects (i.e., tennis). In spite of these deficiencies, however, the two conclusions drawn by Glass and Smith have endured and have received further support.


A compilation of studies examined by Educational Research Service (Robinson & Wittebols, 1986; Robinson, 1990) is noteworthy because of its extensiveness--more than 100 separate studies were reviewed. Robinson's (1990) conclusions added an important set of qualifications to the findings of Glass and Smith:

• [R]esearch does not support the expectation that smaller classes will of themselves result in greater academic gains for students. The effects of class size on student learning varies (sic) by grade level, pupil characteristics, subject areas, teaching methods, and other learning interventions. (p. 90)

In particular, the review concludes that small classes are most beneficial in reading and mathematics in the early primary grades and that: "[t]he research rather consistently finds that students who are economically disadvantaged or from some ethnic minorities perform better academically in smaller classes" (p. 85). Unfortunately, the wide-ranging review failed to distinguish even the best designed studies from those using the poorest methodology, and thus the conclusions must be viewed as tentative.

Let me introduce you to STAR:

Tennessee's Project STAR. Project STAR, the only large-scale, controlled study of the effects of reduced class size, was conducted in 79 elementary schools in the state of Tennessee from 1985 to 1989. The design drew heavily upon previous research findings, namely, that any benefits of small classes are likely to be realized in the primary grades, that there may be different outcomes for students based on race or economic disadvantage, and that only substantial reductions in class size are likely to have noteworthy impact.


Within each participating school, children entering kindergarten were assigned at random to one of three class types: small (S) with an enrollment range of 13 to 17 pupils; regular (R) with an enrollment range of 22 to 26 pupils; or regular with a full-time teacher aide (RA) with 22 to 26 pupils. Teachers also were assigned at random to the class groups. Teachers in the STAR classrooms received no special instructions of any sort, and the duties of teacher aides were not prescribed but were left to the teacher's discretion.4

Classes remained the same type (S, R, or RA) for 4 years, until the pupils were in grade 3. A new teacher was assigned at random to the class each year. Standardized achievement tests (Stanford Achievement Tests, or SATs) were administered to all participating students at the end of each school year. Also, curriculum-based tests (Basic Skills First, or BSF) reflecting the state's instructional objectives in reading and mathematics were administered at the end of grades 1, 2, and 3. Finally, a measure of motivation and self-concept intended for young children also was administered to each pupil (Milchus, Farrah, & Reitz, 1968). In all, about 7,500 pupils in more than 300 classrooms participated in the 4-year longitudinal study.

Four primary results were reported consistently across the 4 years of analysis:

• Differences among the three class types were highly statistically significant for all sets of achievement measures and for every measure individually. In every case, the significance was attributable to the superior performance of children in small classes, and not to classes with full-time teacher aides.
• With only minor exception, there was no significant interaction with school location 6 or sex of the pupil. A significant small-class advantage was found in inner-city, urban, suburban, and rural schools alike and the advantage of small classes was found both for males and females.
• In each year of the study, some of the benefits of small classes were found to be greater for minority students than for nonminorities, or greater for students attending inner-city schools.
• No differences were found among class types on the motivational scales.7

Did I mention that Tennessee was the other Round One winner of the RTTT competition?

In sum, due to the magnitude of the Project STAR longitudinal experiment, the design, and the care with which it was executed, the results are clear:

• This research leaves no doubt that small classes have an advantage over larger classes in student performance in the early primary grades.

Here comes North Carolina:

Two smaller studies of class size were conducted in North Carolina pursuant to STAR. In 1991 educators, citizens, and the school board in Burke County, North Carolina began a project to reduce the class size to 15 in grade 1, followed by grades 2 and 3 in subsequent years (Achilles, Harman, & Egelson, 1995; Egelson, Harman, & Achilles, 1996). And in a related effort, the principal of the Oak Hill elementary school in the Guilford County, North Carolina system restructured classes in grades kindergarten through 3 into a small-class format (15 students). The initiative was termed Success Starts Small (Achilles,et al. 1994; Kiser-Kling, 1995). Oak Hill school was fully Chapter 1 eligible, with 78 percent of its students in the subsidized lunch program. Matched comparison groups were used in both studies.


The results of both projects favored small classes in academic achievement small-class effect sizes were in the range 0.4 to 0.6 (Achilles,et al. 1994; Achilles, Harman, & Egelson, 1995) 0. Significantly, Success Starts Small included systematic comparisons of teaching behavior in small and regular classes:

• Teachers of small classes spent significantly more time on task and significantly less time on discipline or organizational matters compared with teachers of regular-size classes.14

Well, Skip, you can follow the link above to see the sythesis of the data that draws the conclusions that smaller class sizes improve student achievement.  Or you can pretty much google "Small Class Size" and "Research" to find evidence that it's the best way to go.  You'll also probably learn that the studies that invalidate small class size as the best reform failed to control conditions like restructuring classroom schedules, or a lack of a universal standardized test to fairly compare test scores.  Yet, those studies that did not result in universal performance validation did in fact validate many other finding of the more stringent tests, such as isolated increases for students of poverty.

The fact is that the research on class size is out there.  It's been validated by even its detractors - whose main complaint is the cost of implementation.  As you have so eloquently written, " what these low-performing schools need is radical change, and by that I mean real change. Now with the opportunity to bring on strengthened leadership, the best possible teachers, and enough money from Race to the Top to pay for extra time or mentoring -- or whatever else it takes to enable students to learn -- these schools have the potential to be among the best in the state. To get there, these schools must focus on what works for students, beginning with a culture of high expectations."
 
So right, so let's get this thing moving.  Let's put an end to talk about performance pay - the research that the federal government just boo-hoo'd says performance pay doesn't do much of everything - and let's spur a culture of high expectations, starting with revamping our funding formulas, eliminating the class-size cap waiver, beating back the Sept. 30 unit count, and let's get to work.  We can't wait for the feds to get on board with the research.  Their insane idea of education reform is sure to set us back four years at least.  And our kids need us now to stand up for what's right for their education, to start the culture change that supports learning!

I can't wait for the WSFS-Vision Grant that will allow my district to move boldly forward without a request for cap-size waivers.

Nope, you are right, WE CAN'T WAIT ANOTHER DAY!


Sincerely,

Elizabeth Scheinberg
Parent of two school-aged children

Fla. justices take class size amendment challenge


TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Supreme Court has accepted jurisdiction of a challenge to a proposed state constitutional amendment that would loosen class size limits.

The justices Wednesday set oral argument for Oct. 6.

The Florida Education Association, the statewide teachers union, wants the high court to block votes on Amendment 8 from being counted as it's too late to take it off the ballot.

A trial judge has rejected the union's claim that the proposal's ballot title and summary are misleading because they don't say the measure's chief purpose is to change school funding.

Critics of the existing class size amendment that voters passed in 2002 say it's too expensive and too rigid.

Joel Klein, NYC Chancellor of Education, couldn't have said it better:

Because the kids with the greatest needs, in the greatest danger of falling below the line, can't afford political donations and don't belong to a union. So the adults win, and our children lose.

Thanks Joel, for the especially insightful comment in Sunday's New Journal.  I know: your piece was a plug for the Vision Network Conference scheduled for later this month.  And I know that you're real target was unions, teachers' unions.  I know what you said, but I also know what you meant.  My teachers' taught me inference as well as the ability to use my judgement...  And, if the latest crop of school reformers, like you and Arne, succeed; these are skills that may very well be lost entirely on the future workforce...

And lest anyone is confused, especially you, I'll clarify:  Because the kids with the greatest needs can't afford political donations, because their parents aren't voting with their feet, because you know that it will be hell or high water before education funding is truly reformed, because your own education department secretly dropped the cut scores to boost your graduation rates, because you have no one else to blame for failure and won't take the blame yourself, you are leading the assault on educators, the frontline interventionists for student of parents who are either too poor or too disconnected to afford to advocate for their children. 

Yep, I understand it clearly.  Yes, I'd like to see teachers rewarded for great work, but we know that incentive pay and signing bonuses don't actually work - read the research.  We know that charters are about equally successful when taken as a whole as regular 'ole public schools.  We know that the Race to the Top models are poorly researched and that longitudinal data is showing us that there are little long-term gains to be had by them. 

And we know that the adults in the know, the ones backed by the political donations of big business, will succeed in their agenda to reform education because money talks.  The way I see it, these great big grants from the feds, like RTTT, breed one thing and only one thing - educational consultants with even bigger invoices.  So let's cut the crap - just have the feds pony up the money directly to the consultants, many of which have little actual experience or expertise in "turnaround," and leave my schools out of it.  Because, until the feds put money where it needs to be, in the classroom, as in more classrooms with fewer students and hire more teachers to support learning ratios that allow teachers to teach, I'm not interested in the RTTT godsend.

I may have to implement RTTT models in my schools, because my board signed the MOU, which I voted nay to, and my state board amended the regulations to some scandalous rendition that is an affront to local control; but you better watch out because if the buzzword is bold, I'll give you bold.  And if we fail in four years time to create an educational utopia, I'll be sure my constituents know where the failure began - those secretly lowered cut scores in New York and a Delaware DOE that raced to the trough. 

In the meantime, thanks to you and your cronies for de-stabilizing students and schools that could have been on the right track. 

I will promise you this - Longitudinally-speaking IF Rttt works, I'll be the first to eat my words.  But, then, since the ed reformers have decided to neglect the scientific findings, because the data-driven have refused to become data-informed... ONLY TIME WILL TELL...

Sincerely,
Elizabeth  Scheinberg
Parent of two school-age children

Learn from your elders


A lawyer and a senior citizen are sitting next to each other on a long flight..

The lawyer is thinking that seniors are so dumb that he could get one over on them easy.

So the lawyer asks if the senior would like to play a fun game.

The senior is tired and just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines and tries to catch a few winks.

The lawyer persists saying that the game is a lot of fun. I ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, you pay me only $5.
Then you ask me one, and if I don't know the answer, I will pay you $500, he says.

This catches the senior's attention and to keep the lawyer quiet, he agrees to play the game.
The lawyer asks the first question. 'What's the distance from the Earth to the Moon?'

The senior doesn't say a word, but reaches into his pocket, pulls out a five-dollar bill, and hands it to the lawyer

Now it's the senior's turn. He asks the lawyer, 'What goes up a hill with three legs, and comes down with four?'

The lawyer uses his laptop and searches all references he could find on the Net.

He sends e-mails to all the smart friends he knows; all to no avail. After an hour of searching, he finally gives up.

He wakes the senior and hands him $500. The senior pockets the $500 and goes right back to sleep.

The lawyer is going nuts not knowing the answer. He wakes the senior up and asks, 'Well, so what goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four?'

The senior reaches into his pocket, hands the lawyer $5 and goes back to sleep.

From School Law by Mark Walsh, http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/school_law/2010/09/roundup_5.html

Shock Therapy:  In a separate case, "the family of a former student who received electric shocks at a special needs school has agreed to receive $65,000 to settle a lawsuit claiming the treatment was inhumane and violated the student's civil rights," the AP reports.


The case involves "aversive therapies" used at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Mass. The settlement comes after a federal appeals court in 2008 ordered a lower-court to reconsider an injunction that had barred the New York State Education Department from enforcing an emergency regulation against the shock therapy, which I reported on in the blog here.

The New York State agency became involved because the Massachusetts school serves students who have been referred there as part of their special education plans. The U.S. Department of Justice said this past February that it had begun an inquiry into the school's methods.

The school contends that parents consent to the use of shock therapy when enrolling their children in the Judge Rotenberg Center. The AP reports that settlement came in a suit filed in 2006 on behalf of Antwone Nicholson, then 17, of Freeport, N.Y., who attended the school for about four years. Nicholson's mother, Evelyn, became concerned that the shock therapy was used in far more circumstances than she thought it would and became "inhumane," her lawyer told AP.

The school issued a statement calling the settlement "minimal" and something requested by its insurer. The school defends its practices on its website.

Understanding cut scores is key to rational discussion about the performance of Buffalo schools


Mark Garrison
Buffalo Education Technology Examiner
August 5th, 2010 11:37 pm ET.

Following my July 29 article on how New York State imposed mass failure on Buffalo schools, a teacher confessed to me that he did not understand the conception or significance of “cut score” discussed in that article.
Little public discussion of the limits of testing technology

This confession reveals several things. First, it reveals that the technical language surrounding standardized test development, administration and interpretation is unnecessarily obtuse, making this “social technology” less easy to understand.

The phrase “cut score” is one such example. A more obvious, but equally appropriate phrase would be “passing score.” So, a “cut score” is the minimum score required of a student to be considered having performed at a certain level. “Cut” or passing scores answer the question, how much is good enough?

The written portion of New York’s driver’s exam offers a useful example. Knowing that most people “pass” the written portion of this test tells us little about the test or people's driving ability. We need to know what the passing score is and how the passing score is determined; we also need to review sample test items to evaluate the test. Knowing that one must answer 80 percent of the questions correctly to pass helps, but it begs the question of how 80 percent was chosen as the passing score. Why not 90 percent, or 70 percent? Further, are all questions on this written portion of the test equally difficult, as an aggregate percentage of correct answers assumes? Are all items equally important? Knowing what a stop sign looks like seems far more important than knowing the symbol for slippery road.

When it comes to educational testing, the New York State Education Department (NYSED) offers no public answers to these types of questions. We don’t know what the passing scores are for this year’s 3-8 grade math and English tests, nor do we know how that passing score was determined.

On July 29, this examiner requested from NYSED the analysis they purport to have conducted as a basis for raising cut scores in New York. As of this posting, they have not responded to the request.
Setting passing scores is political

This reveals a second trend: “States,” education policy analyst Andrew Rotherham observes, “rarely explain what it actually means for a student to pass a state test, to be ‘proficient,’ or how passing scores are established.” Media outlets simply report the results without explanation; educators are forced to respond to the reports as if test scores are a force of nature.

Yet Rotherham emphasizes that determining these passing scores is subjective -- meaning is it a judgment call. There are a number of technical procedures to help in determining “cut scores” -- some of which are outlined in Rotherham’s article -- but they all rest on the judgment of a relatively small group of people, largely hidden from and unaccountable to the public.

Thus, test scores do not represent some absolute, infallible truth. Standardized tests only offer us an estimate of a student’s knowledge. Because it is an estimate it is by definition fallible, just as weather predictions are fallible. Yet these simple caveats are hidden from the public.
Possibly more important for understanding present trends is the political nature of setting cut cores. Rotherham observes:

Political considerations can also influence the setting of cut scores -- and sometimes do. As a general rule, state policymakers want to look good, and this can create a downward pressure on passing scores. States also often set cut scores lower than they otherwise might in order to create buy-in from educators and the public. While high passing scores might earn plaudits from some educators and school reformers, they can erode public and educator confidence in various reforms because progress appears daunting. Political influences on cut-score setting can be subtle. Decisions about the composition of score-setting panels, for example, can affect the process in largely untraceable but potentially powerful ways.

It is no coincidence that with the arrival of a new commissioner of education in New York, new cut scores are produced. Dramatic changes in test scores often vary with political transitions, a pattern denoted by education researcher Robert Linn as the “saw tooth effect”: school systems learn the test and show test score gains over time on that test. When a new test is introduced by a new administration, test scores drop (graphing this trend reveals a “saw tooth” pattern). The failure induced by the new administration serves to provide it with a sense of urgency that can be used to mobilize support for its agenda.

What is even less well known is that forces like the Business Roundtable work to have their executives sit on “cut score committees” so that they can manipulate the scores. Typically, as evidenced in this earlier effort, they seek to produce more failure in order to bolster the need for their “reform” agenda.
To help inform readers, here are some recommended reading:


Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us, by Daniel Koretz


The Paradoxes of High Stakes Testing: How They Affect Students, Their Parents, Teachers, Principals, Schools, and Society, by George Madaus, Michael Russell & Jennifer Higgins


A Measure of Failure: The Political Origins of Standardized Testing, by Mark J. Garrison

Unintended Consequences of School Choice


By Walt Gardner on September 15, 2010 8:19 AM

In theory, parental choice of schools is supposed to assure educational equity. But in practice, the strategy has not always worked out that way. Reports from Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco and New York City, for example, illustrate why the devil is always in the details.

For starters, the system is terribly confusing to even the most sophisticated parents. In an attempt to provide all parents with the opportunity to enroll their children in schools that best meet their needs and interests, officials have created rules worthy of a Solomon to decipher. Los Angeles uses a points system for parents who don't want to enroll their children in neighborhood schools. But separate programs have different application forms, processes and deadlines that are maddening.

Disaffection with rules is also seen in Philadelphia, where parents younger than 30 are among the district's "most dissatisfied customers," according to a study by the Pew Charitable Trusts that was released in June. But parents of all ages charged that the sea of choices was bewildering. Despite spending days studying the regulations, they often wind up no closer to a satisfactory answer. This frustration first leads to anger and then to cynicism.

For another, school districts continue to be under enormous pressure to diversify their student enrollment. When the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007 ruled that assigning students to schools based primarily on race was unconstitutional, districts began moving toward the use of socioeconomic status. The trouble is that it has resulted in many children of middle-class families being rejected by the schools in their neighborhoods because they constituted a disproportionate presence. Rather than remain on waiting lists in the hope that the next time they apply will mean acceptance, parents have enrolled their children in private and religious schools. In San Francisco, the district is losing 1,000 students a year, according to a 2008 report from the Mayor's Policy Council for Children, Youth and Families.

In New York City, living in a particular neighborhood once was a sure ticket to enrollment in a school in the same neighborhood. In fact, real estate agents routinely advertised the existence of good neighborhood schools as a powerful selling point, and parents willingly paid a premium. But since the high court's ruling, they've been shocked to find out that their decision either to buy or rent apartments in pricey areas offered them no assured entry whatsoever. Instead, they too have been placed on waiting lists. As in San Francisco, parents have bit the bullet and enrolled their children in private or religious schools.

What is so troubling in the entire scenario is that middle-class parents of all races constitute the ballast public schools desperately need. If these parents are barred from enrolling their children in the public schools they want for one reason or another, they will continue to flee the system. That is their right, of course, but it defeats the purpose of integration.

In an attempt to make admissions fair, some districts use a lottery when demand exceeds supply. Since it relies strictly on chance, it favors no one. But it is not without its problems. Children living next to a coveted school could be denied admission simply because their number was not randomly chosen. By the same token, siblings could be separated. In short, critics make a strong case that a lottery involves the kind of uncertainty and lack of control that parental choice is supposed to eliminate.

So what is the solution? In the final analysis, fairness is in the eyes of the beholder. What satisfies one family unavoidably will fail to satisfy another. That's why some reformers have insisted from the start that the only solution is to improve all neighborhood schools. If that goal were ever achieved, it would provide a strong disincentive for parents to look elsewhere. That would indeed be cause to celebrate.

Published Online: September 15, 2010


Mass. bullying suspect seeks dismissal of charges

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. (AP) — An attorney for a teen accused of bullying a 15-year-old Massachusetts girl who hanged herself says there's no evidence his client did anything wrong.

Michael Jennings, the attorney for 17-year-old Kayla Narey, said Wednesday that he'll ask a judge to review the grand jury report and dismiss the charges. He says Narey never hurt Phoebe Prince, never threatened to and never did anything else that would cause Prince to harm herself.

Narey is among six South Hadley teenagers charged in connection with Prince's suicide in January. Prosecutors say Prince, a high school freshman, was despondent after incessant bullying.

All six of the teens have pleaded not guilty.

Christina goes digital by unanimous vote to amend public meeting policy.  The audio of future board meetings will become available on the district website pending equipment acquisition.  Christina is the first district in the state to adopt a policy for audio/visual recordings and the dissemination to the public of those recordings via its website.

Brent Batten: School Board strays from the matrix

By BRENT BATTEN
Naples Daily News
Posted September 10, 2010 at 3:45 p.m., updated September 11, 2010 at 5:35 p.m.

Collier County’s recent history with school superintendents makes one long for a tool, a method, a system to objectively measure performance and offer guidance so that emotion and agendas don’t govern the process.

Oddly enough, one exists, but community leaders who helped craft it wonder if it's being used and if it will survive the turmoil surrounding the impending departure of Superintendent Dennis Thompson.

Earlier this year, a collaborative effort between school board members, the school staff, Thompson and volunteers with Connect Now, a community group focused on improving education, resulted in an extensive matrix of measurable goals for Thompson.

It included five major goals, improving student achievement, developing a long-range strategic plan, enhancing internal and external communication and public engagement, designing and implementing professional development for staff, and managing resources effectively.

Within each goal is a set of objectives. For instance, under the goal of improving student achievement, one objective is “Increase the percentage of students in grades 1-5 proficient in math as measured by the district math assessment test by 5 percent.”

That seems pretty cut and dried. Either the percentage is up 5 percent or it’s not. The school system’s statisticians report that the goal was easily met. Yet one school board member gave the superintendent an unsatisfactory mark, two said the superintendent met expectations, one said he exceeded expectations and one didn’t weigh in at all.

Under one reading comprehension objective, statistics showed Thompson did not meet the goal yet Board Member Steve Donovan gave the superintendent a passing mark. “Even though the goal was not met, there was significant student growth in some fields and fell just short of meeting expectations,” Donovan wrote in comments. So falling just short of the goal equals meeting expectations?

The knocks against Thompson largely centered on a perception of intimidation from the top of the district hierarchy. The evaluation matrix attempted to quantify that through surveys of teachers and administrative staff. To the question, “I am encouraged to collaborate with other teachers and district leaders,” 82 percent of teachers either agreed or strongly agreed. To, “Administrators listen to my concerns,” 73 percent either agreed or strongly agreed. Twelve percent either disagreed or strongly disagreed.

But the “intimidation” argument put forth by leaders of the teachers’ union who said they could not provide specifics for fear of bringing retaliation on their members carried the day.

Board member Roy Terry cited the way Thompson was hired on the heels of the unceremonious ouster of former Superintendent Ray Baker as one reason for not renewing Thompson’s contract.

That and the spectacle of grinning union leaders high-fiving after the vote to let Thompson go run counter to the efforts of so many who tried to bring objectivity to the process, said Alan Horton, chairman of the Connect Now effort. He and others worry that the goal matrix will fall by the wayside and Collier County will stick with its tradition of hiring and firing superintendents on whims and feelings. “Those metrics are needed,” Horton said. “Let’s have that blueprint in place for whoever the superintendent is.”
The school board’s sporadic adherence to the matrix when evaluating Thompson is particularly worrisome since the board was behind its creation. “Either you put a tool in place, or you don’t,” said Chuck Mohlke, a Connect Now participant. “All that work, I hope, doesn’t go for naught.”

Connect Now Vice Chariwoman Kathleen Passidomo was busy preparing to take her seat as a newly elected state representative as the Thompson drama unfolded last month and said she wasn’t paying close attention. But she affirmed that the board was behind the effort to quantify the superintendent’s performance. “They wholeheartedly endorsed the Connect Now process and said they would not put it on a shelf,” she recalled.

Since we’re talking about schools, what letter grade would the board get for its process of evaluating Thompson?

“I wouldn’t give them a C. I might give them a grade lower than that,” Mohlke said.

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100909/NEWS/100909031/4-Del-schools-win-Blue-Ribbon-award

Four schools in Delaware were named 'Blue Ribbon' award winners today by the U.S. Department of Education.


The program identifies schools that are either high-performing or have raised student achievement to high levels, particularly for disadvantaged students. The program is part of an effort to identify and spread good teaching practices.
The local schools honored:

• Christ the Teacher Catholic School, 2451 Frazer Road, Glasgow

• Newark Charter School, 2001 Patriot Way, west of Newark

• Robert C. Gallaher School, 800 N. Brownleaf Road, Ogletown

• Woodbridge Elementary School, 400 Governors Ave., Greenwood

They are on a list of 304 winners nationwide, including public elementary, middle and high schools as well as Catholic, technical and charter schools.

The awards were announced at a Washington, D.C., school that was among the winners.

Politics, not evidence, drive education reform
Bruce Fuller
Friday, September 3, 2010

President Obama's ambitious effort to lift the nation's schools draws heavily from the playbook employed in Chicago and New York City: Test kids more often, open more charter schools and tie teacher pay to student performance.

California's schools and politicians are promptly obliging Washington, like kids lining up for recess. Obama's education secretary, Arne Duncan, is praising Los Angeles' move to link teacher promotions to a single score that allegedly captures the "value added" of each teacher in raising pupil test scores. The science for calculating these magical numbers remains hotly contested among scholars.

Sacramento has bowed to Washington pressure to spawn more charter schools, despite three national studies that now show no discernible benefits for children attending charter campuses relative to their peers in regular public schools.
So, it was a teachable moment when angry New York City parents - incensed by their children's collapsing scores - shouted down New York City schools chief Joel I. Klein, who then walked off the stage at a forum last month. New York state officials now admit that their not-so-standardized tests had been getting easier to pass as the city's ambitious reforms were kicking in, so they recalibrated the exams to make them more rigorous. After students sat for the new reading exams last spring, just 42 percent passed, down from 69 percent in 2009.
It's a lesson that policymakers are failing to learn: Trendy school reforms built on grand promises and loose evaluation can yield great political enthusiasm but slight benefit for students.

Dumbed-down remedies have come from earlier presidents. Ronald Reagan claimed that stiff market competition and vouchers would invigorate the schools. George W. Bush claimed that more intense testing and closing bad schools, just as New York City is doing, would turn around public education.
President Obama's story line is more compelling. First, set demanding national standards and a common benchmark for proficient student performance. Second, attract stronger college graduates to the teaching profession. Then, create strong incentives for schools and teachers to innovate.
But then the president's initiative splits into fragmented remedies rich in political symbols yet poorly backed by evidence. Obama again defended last month his leaning on the nation's governors to expand charter schools, independent educators who serve just 2 percent of all students nationwide.

Yes, we must devise fair ways of purging lousy teachers from the schools. But the National Academies of Science have warned policymakers that most districts lack sufficient data and statisticians lack solid methods for estimating a teacher's discrete impact on student learning, after taking into account the influence of confounding factors. Obama's desire to signal tough love for teachers trumps careful policy.

Simple diagnoses also distract from serious dialogue on what ails the schools. One-third of the nation's entering teachers leave the profession within five years, often fleeing dismal and uninventive schools. The president's rush to silver bullets will further repel our best teachers.

Obama has said little about rising levels of child poverty, beyond the helpful dose of security offered by health care reform. Family poverty remains the more potent driver of children's learning curves, based on a half century of research.
The president is right to crack down on weak teachers and experiment with inventive policies. But we need a focused agenda that enriches schools as stimulating places in which to work and that avoids disparate remedies that play to the gallery but fail to lift students.


Bruce Fuller, professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley, is the author of "Standardized Childhood."
This article appeared on page A - 14 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/02/EDNQ1F7QTT.DTL#ixzz0yaO5CxvQ

Please, don't drink the kool-aide...

Stunning New Report: Sometimes Hard Decisions are Unpopular


August 31, 2010 by Justin Cohen

My staff tells me I should be less glib when I title my blog posts, but this one was unavoidable. EdWeek reports on a new CEP survey that found limited knowledge – among both school officials and the public – of the federal school improvement program. The supposedly shocking top-line numbers are that only 12% of districts had implemented the program, and that 1/3 of districts didn’t even know about it.

Maybe I’m dense, but I don’t understand why this is a story. This is a program aimed at the bottom 5% of schools. We shouldn’t expect every district to be dealing with this issue. Just as effective teachers aren’t equitably distributed across schools and systems, neither are chronically under-performing schools distributed in a geographically egalitarian manner. So, not only is the 12% not troubling, it’s encouraging! This money is not for everyone that wants it. It’s for the schools and systems with the most challenging problems. I’d be pissed if the money was going to Greenwich. Similarly, it would be a shame to distribute the money based on a formula alone, rather than demanding real change in exchange for the funds. The relatively small number of recipients shouldn’t be cast as a purely negative data point. (Although, I admittedly wish there weren’t so many districts that claim to know nothing about a giant national initiative.)

But back to the title. The other big number here is this:
“… 54 percent of those surveyed in a recent public opinion poll said they preferred principals and teachers stay in place and are given outside help to boost a lagging school.”

Two things on this. First, see the title of the post. Leadership means sometimes making unpopular decisions. Those involving personnel – particularly in education – are usually unpopular, but that doesn’t mean they’re always wrong. (It also doesn’t mean those decisions are always right, by the way.) Second, I’ll be the first person to admit that we as a country have a lot more to learn about turning around schools at scale. It’s a practice in its infancy, with some great proof-points for what’s possible. But we don’t have all the answers. What we do know, however, is that bringing in professional development – while leaving everything else about a school the same – doesn’t work. Period. We’ve spent millions of dollars over the last decade trying to make meaningful progress without really changing the fundamentals, and it hasn’t moved the needle in these particular schools. More of the same is not a solution.

-----------------------

More of the same?  Unproven "reform" is the name of the game.  It's the status quo.  And it usually fails.  School Turnaround is MORE OF THE SAME.  As for the bottom five percent - try this perspective:  When you move the bottom five percent into turnaround you naturally create a new bottom five percent.  That's why Delaware has a tiered system of reform.  As schools are plucked, tarred, feathered, and assigned to the Partnership Zone in Delaware, their slightly better achievers will slide in the ripe for pickin' slots. 

So, over the years, we've brought in more professional development (gee, not too long ago, Gov. Markell furloughed our PD days) and that didn't work.  Could it be because we failed to add enough teachers to the mix to bring down class sizes and create opportunities to put that PD to real use?  Don't worry folks, if the transformation model is really the name of the game in the new Partnership Zone, our teachers will receive plenty more PD.  From the News Journal:  transformation, which has four components -- replacing the principal and increasing school leader effectiveness, instructional reforms, increasing learning time and creating community-oriented schools with operational flexibility"   Nothing there about human capital... How disappointing. 

Translating Class-Size Research to Practice


Many class-size studies collectively told educators much about schooling and identified that there were right ways to use small classes. On tests given in grades 3 and higher, studies showed that one year (grade 3) in a small class, and even two years (grades 2 and 3) yielded negligible test-score gains. For short-term and long-term results, students had to start small classes when they entered school (kindergarten or grade one). The treatment had to be intense (all day, every day) and for sufficient duration (at least three and preferably four years). Small classes are more preventive than remedial, as they help teach young students what is expected in schooling. By 2001 researchers had identified some two dozen research-and theory-based reasons why small classes provide superior student opportunities and outcomes (see Table 1).

The longer a student has small classes the better the outcomes, not just while in small classes, but through high school and beyond. Small-class K - 3 students gained about a year's growth in all subjects tested over randomly assigned peers in larger classes. Small-class students had significantly higher graduation rates, lower retention in grade, and higher percentage of honors diplomas. Early small-class attendance reduced the college admissions test-taking gap between white and minority students significantly. In contrast classes with teacher aides (which reduced PTR but not class size) were particularly ineffective for minority male students, a finding that helps explain the mixed outcomes in Prime Time after aides were allowed as a small-class alternative.  http://www.answers.com/topic/class-size-and-student-learning

Common Sense.