I'm interrupting our 2013 Pleasures series for this guest post by Kristin King, to boost the signal of news that will likely not be carried by Seattle's primary news outlet. But we'll be resuming the Pleasures series shortly.
Privacy, Propaganda, and Assimilation in the 21st Century
by Kristin King
kristinking.org
Yesterday, KUOW broke the news that the Washington State education department, OSPI, signed a data sharing agreement to hand all kinds of confidential student and teacher information off to eight reporters at the Seattle Times. Parents were never notified, lack the legal right to “opt out” of such disclosures, and have no legal recourse if their students’ data is stolen and misused. Our only protection? The Times and the reporters promised to keep the data private and to return it when their studies were done.
Yes, I did say “studies” rather than “articles” or “investigations.” Since when do reporters conduct studies? Since a nonprofit gave the Seattle Times some grant money for it, that’s when. What nonprofit? Why?
The name of the nonprofit is the Solutions Journalism Network. It’s a new thing. You know how the news is kind of a downer? It presents crises, but no solutions. But never fear! Someone is on hand to do evidence-based research on ideas for fixing the problems.
You might wonder whether the solutions are simply “for the greater good” or whether they benefit anyone in particular. I certainly did. So I did what I always do when I see a nonprofit involved in something that looks sketchy: I checked out their funders. At the top of the list? The Gates Foundation, which has become notorious for using its cash to change public policy to support various types of school privatization and other changes to education, including the Common Core initiative, which requires states to gather large amounts of data on students, teachers, and test scores.
By the way, as long as we’re talking about the Gates Foundation, we had better talk about Bill Gates and his
concept of creative capitalism. It’s unfortunate that capitalism is hard on some people, but we’re all smart people, and we can fix it. You just find creative ways “to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world's inequities.” The inequities still exist, of course.
After I finished peeking at their funders, I checked out the Solutions Journalism Network’s projects and examples. They have grants available for researching climate change, for example. But not stopping climate change. No. The articles are all about climate change resilience, or helping communities cope with the disastrous effects of climate change on local communities. And there are articles on economic equity. But this isn’t economic equity between the rich and the poor, or between whites and people of color. No. It’s only economic equity between men and women. And there are articles on solutions to education problems. But they’re not about addressing fundamental barriers to learning. No. They’re about social/emotional learning.
Do you see a pattern here? The articles are all great articles. We should be working on climate change, economic equity between men and women, and social-emotional learning. However, the grant funders are only looking for articles that are going to make us feel good without threatening their wealth or raising taxes.
Let's dig a little deeper into the kind of content they’re looking for. If you scroll down just a little way on the “examples”
page, you see their idea of a Solutions Journalism approach to education on the rez. The article they highlight is “Education in Indian Country: Obstacles and Opportunity,” published in Education Week. The problem? “On most measures of educational success, Native American students trail every other racial and ethnic subgroup of students.” What’s the solution? I’ll give you a hint: it’s got nothing to do with raising the per capita income above $8,000 per year, or putting tax dollars into schools. Actually, it’s about an Indian school. It’s about sending Lakota children off to a private, Jesuit-run high school.
I had to stop here and do the dismayed version of laughter. Did we learn nothing from the past three hundred years? Did we forget about all the abuses heaped on First Nations peoples by Jesuit boarding schools? No, we actually didn’t forget. If you do a Google search for “Jesuit boarding schools Native American,” you’ll see what I mean. Of course, the Jesuits of today are not the same as those olden times Jesuits. We’re in the twenty-first century, and assimilation takes a different form. Students learn the Lakota language and are allowed to practice Lakota spirituality. That’s all good. But they also study the Catholic religion and learn how to function in twenty-first century capitalism. More importantly, an outside entity is getting to decide what the Lakota kids learn. This is still assimilation.
Also problematic is that a private school is set up as a solution to economic inequalities. Not all the Lakota children are allowed to go: school officials choose kids they feel have appropriate parental support. An even smaller number are able to go on to college: since 1999, 50 students have been granted Gates Foundation scholarships to go to college.
This is the creative capitalism solution in a nutshell: leave the underlying social injustices in place, but “ease the world’s inequalities.” Might there be a better solution that includes economic justice and Lakota self-determination? Yes, but Solutions Journalism isn’t going to be funded to look for it.
Instead, I’d be willing to bet that Solutions Journalism will be funded to look at education “solutions” involving privatization, high-stakes testing, fast-track teacher preparation programs, and other corporately-inspired “education reforms.” Why would I think that? Because it’s what its funders want.
And this brings us back to the grant-funded Education Lab at the Seattle Times. The grant funders have no direct control over editorial content, as the Times explains. But of course they have the same kinds of indirect control as advertisers have. If an advertiser doesn’t like what a publication is doing, it can withdraw its advertisements. If the grant funders don’t like the stories put out by the Times, they can stop making grants. Another type of indirect control is that money is available for certain types of projects that might not be possible otherwise, such as the study the reporters are doing using student data.
What might that study be about? We don’t know, but from the KUOW article we do know that the OSPI “has so far promised the Times individual student and staff data dating from 2009 to this year, including individual students’ test scores on numerous state assessments, grades, school schedules, absences and discipline information.” We also know that Deputy Managing Editor Jim Simon wants this -- ahem -- “welter of information” as “a way to hold the system accountable for the performance of schools.”
Ah, accountability. In the world of “education reform,” that means judging schools and teachers by student “achievement” as measured by scores on standardized tests. It doesn’t mean
accountability for fully funding schools or working to solve
racially based discipline disproportionality or following the law in educating special education students .
A few years back, the Los Angeles Times used this data for “accountability” with
tragic results. It posted rankings of teachers based spuriously on student test scores, and a teacher was so upset he committed suicide. Here’s hoping the Times doesn’t do that. But my guess is that the study will in some way, shape, or form, advocate for “education reform.”
Putting it all together? My children’s private data will be used to bring grant money to a for-profit company. It will be used as propaganda for education policy changes that are not in my kids’ best interest. I’m not pleased.
What can be done? Well, public protest is always good. Angry parents and civil liberties groups have stopped a bunch of states from sharing data with Gates Foundation-funded nonprofit InBloom.
But to make that public protest happen, people need more information about privacy. Most of the parents I talk to don’t understand the ways the federal privacy law, FERPA, does and does not protect our children’s privacy. They don’t know that even if they sign an opt-out form, schools can share data with third-party organizations. They don’t know that this kind of data sharing agreement is becoming the norm. That’s a lot to explain right there.
We also need a better understanding of the dynamic between nonprofits and the philanthropies that fund them. For that, I’d recommend the book The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Nonprofit Industrial Complex. It’s a big eye-opener. Or if you want something shorter, try my
post “Are Nonprofits Our Frenemies?”
Here in Seattle, we are fortunate to have some actual investigative journalism around education issues: the blogs Save Seattle Schools (http://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/) and Seattle Education (http://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/). Through these blogs, Seattle parents, teachers, and students have been able to work together to learn about privatization and fight for our own visions of education.
And as a bonus? Unlike the Seattle Times, those blogs don’t make back-door deals with the state to get our children’s private data.
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Friday, December 20, 2013
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Charter Schools and the Reason Foundation
by Kristin King
Charter schools are on the rise nationally, despite no evidence of success and evidence of real harm to students. Seattle has voted down charter schools time after time, but 2010 might be the year they establish a firm foothold in our most vulnerable neighborhoods. Charter school companies like KIPP and GreenDot are coming to town to give public and private lectures, probably in an effort to pass state legislation allowing charter schools. Meanwhile, the school superintendent seems to be pushing to close schools that have failed under No Child Left Behind.
What’s behind this huge push?
A previous blog post talked about the influence of billionaires Fordham, Gates, and Broad in the recent anti-union efforts of the organization NCTQ. These billionaires have charter school plans as well, which I’ll discuss in another post.
But another key player is the Reason Foundation, a major libertarian organization partly funded by billionaire David H. Koch. (The Koch brothers fund the Tea Party, and their father, Fred Koch, was a founding member of the John Birch society.) Through this foundation, Koch has been gaining greater and greater power over public policy. This power is leading to changes in our laws that the vast majority of Americans probably do not want.
The mission statement of the Reason Foundation says:
“We use journalism and public policy research to influence the frameworks and actions of policymakers, journalists and opinion leaders. Reason Foundation’s nonpartisan public policy research promotes choice, competition, and a dynamic market economy as the foundation for human dignity and progress.”
This agenda of “choice, competition, and a dynamic market economy” is especially dangerous for our public schools. But that’s the direction our nation’s schools are taking, and it’s because of the behind-the-scenes power of billionaires and organizations like the Reason Foundation and the Fordham Institute.
The Reason Foundation policy paper “Fix the City Schools: Moving All Schools to Charter-Like Autonomy” by Lisa Snell, proposes that schools perpetually compete with one another based on the results of standardized tests, and perpetually close when they fail to meet standards that have been imposed by the top.
Snell writes: “The bottom line is that the district seeks continuous improvement by assessing performance of all schools, closing the lowest performing schools and creating alternate opportunities for students in the least productive schools.” In other words, “the essence of this policy brief” is to “close failing schools, open new schools, replicate great schools, repeat.”
What makes this technique so damaging to students is that charter schools, on the whole, don’t provide a better education. One-third of charter schools do worse than public schools – while only one-sixth do better, and one-half do about the same. This means that approximately one third of students in these closed schools will move on to an even worse education. And every time a school closes, all the students face severe disruptions.
These are not just theoretical outcomes, but represent the actual, lived experience of millions of students in districts where charter schools have taken hold, as in cities like New Orleans, Chicago, and New York. (David H. Koch, by the way, is the richest and most powerful resident of New York City.) It has been devastating for the most marginalized children – poor children, children of color, special education children, and English language learners.
But the actual suffering of children does nothing to deter the Reason Foundation or school district leaders in cities targeted for charter schools. Snell interviewed Louisiana State Superintendent Paul Pastorek and described his vision for public schools:
“There was an article written the other day called ‘Try, Try Again,’ and I think it epitomizes our strategy. We’ll give it to a charter operator. We’ll let them work it. If they fail, we’ll bring in another charter operator and if they fail, we’ll bring in another charter operator until they get it right.”
Our struggling kids can’t wait while policymakers and state superintendents try out this charter experiment. They need real change now. They need an end to the punitive measures in No Child Left Behind.They need librarians, counselors, social services, and tutoring. They need equal access to excellent education, regardless of income, race, ability, or language. They need qualified, experienced teachers with union protections. They need small class sizes.
Because there are no quick fixes.
Because education isn’t about “high performing” or “productive” schools.
It’s about the kids.
x-posted from Kristin King's Blog
Charter schools are on the rise nationally, despite no evidence of success and evidence of real harm to students. Seattle has voted down charter schools time after time, but 2010 might be the year they establish a firm foothold in our most vulnerable neighborhoods. Charter school companies like KIPP and GreenDot are coming to town to give public and private lectures, probably in an effort to pass state legislation allowing charter schools. Meanwhile, the school superintendent seems to be pushing to close schools that have failed under No Child Left Behind.
What’s behind this huge push?
A previous blog post talked about the influence of billionaires Fordham, Gates, and Broad in the recent anti-union efforts of the organization NCTQ. These billionaires have charter school plans as well, which I’ll discuss in another post.
But another key player is the Reason Foundation, a major libertarian organization partly funded by billionaire David H. Koch. (The Koch brothers fund the Tea Party, and their father, Fred Koch, was a founding member of the John Birch society.) Through this foundation, Koch has been gaining greater and greater power over public policy. This power is leading to changes in our laws that the vast majority of Americans probably do not want.
The mission statement of the Reason Foundation says:
“We use journalism and public policy research to influence the frameworks and actions of policymakers, journalists and opinion leaders. Reason Foundation’s nonpartisan public policy research promotes choice, competition, and a dynamic market economy as the foundation for human dignity and progress.”
This agenda of “choice, competition, and a dynamic market economy” is especially dangerous for our public schools. But that’s the direction our nation’s schools are taking, and it’s because of the behind-the-scenes power of billionaires and organizations like the Reason Foundation and the Fordham Institute.
The Reason Foundation policy paper “Fix the City Schools: Moving All Schools to Charter-Like Autonomy” by Lisa Snell, proposes that schools perpetually compete with one another based on the results of standardized tests, and perpetually close when they fail to meet standards that have been imposed by the top.
Snell writes: “The bottom line is that the district seeks continuous improvement by assessing performance of all schools, closing the lowest performing schools and creating alternate opportunities for students in the least productive schools.” In other words, “the essence of this policy brief” is to “close failing schools, open new schools, replicate great schools, repeat.”
What makes this technique so damaging to students is that charter schools, on the whole, don’t provide a better education. One-third of charter schools do worse than public schools – while only one-sixth do better, and one-half do about the same. This means that approximately one third of students in these closed schools will move on to an even worse education. And every time a school closes, all the students face severe disruptions.
These are not just theoretical outcomes, but represent the actual, lived experience of millions of students in districts where charter schools have taken hold, as in cities like New Orleans, Chicago, and New York. (David H. Koch, by the way, is the richest and most powerful resident of New York City.) It has been devastating for the most marginalized children – poor children, children of color, special education children, and English language learners.
But the actual suffering of children does nothing to deter the Reason Foundation or school district leaders in cities targeted for charter schools. Snell interviewed Louisiana State Superintendent Paul Pastorek and described his vision for public schools:
“There was an article written the other day called ‘Try, Try Again,’ and I think it epitomizes our strategy. We’ll give it to a charter operator. We’ll let them work it. If they fail, we’ll bring in another charter operator and if they fail, we’ll bring in another charter operator until they get it right.”
Our struggling kids can’t wait while policymakers and state superintendents try out this charter experiment. They need real change now. They need an end to the punitive measures in No Child Left Behind.They need librarians, counselors, social services, and tutoring. They need equal access to excellent education, regardless of income, race, ability, or language. They need qualified, experienced teachers with union protections. They need small class sizes.
Because there are no quick fixes.
Because education isn’t about “high performing” or “productive” schools.
It’s about the kids.
x-posted from Kristin King's Blog
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Time Magazine’s Education “Reform” Articles
by Kristin King
The Seattle teacher’s union just negotiated its labor contract with the district. In the middle of August, during contract negotiations, I got a letter from a teacher that raised all sorts of red flags for me. The district superintendent had just introduced a proposal that would (a) base teacher evaluations on the results of standardized tests given to students; and (b) give her broad powers to lay off teachers. Once I started looking into it, I learned that this proposal was part of a national push for some dangerous education reforms. The reforms are an attempt to:
I’ve been looking for ways to frame this conversation when talking to other parents, which is especially difficult because many parents and teachers did ask for some of the reforms in the teacher’s contract, and some of those reforms are an attempt to solve longstanding educational inequalities of race and class.
However, as the PR gets going for education reform, it is becoming easier to see and discuss the big picture. The September 20th issue of Time Magazine has two articles in support of these two reforms. They’re part of the national PR effort for education reform. Read uncritically, they paint a rosy picture. But we can read them critically to expose their lies; to see the hidden reform agenda; and inform ourselves about the dangers of this reform.
Lies About Charter Schools
The first article, “How to Fix Our Schools,” argues for charter schools. It begins with an announcement of a movie, “Waiting for Superman,” which depicts failing public schools and successful charter schools. It then goes on to state in big, bold numbers in a graphic that 17% of charter schools significantly outperform traditional public schools (p.38). But it buries the proof that charter schools on the whole do worse than traditional public schools. The article states, “But only 1 in 6 charter schools significantly outperforms traditional counterparts. And more than a third underperform.” This means that twice as many charter schools (2/6 vs. 1/6) underperform as overperform.
This is lying by burying statistics.
It’s true that some students leave schools with poor student test scores to attend schools with high student test scores. Leaving aside the problem that student test scores completely leave out the social/emotional development of our children, there is also the problem that a greater number of students attend poor charter schools than quality ones. The scenario depicted in Waiting For Superman, therefore, is essentially an emotional appeal. The final paragraph of the article builds on the emotional impact of the movie, by describing scenes in which “mothers weep and children cross their fingers in hopes of a desperate future,” and quotes an education reformer in saying “The rawness of the emotions of the parents gets to me – that unbelievable, desperate hope” (42).
This is lying by appealing to emotions rather than facts.
Lies about TFA Teachers
The next article, “How to Recruit Better Teachers,” makes an extremely sneaky argument for staffing “the toughest classrooms” with inexperienced teachers. It starts out with “beloved teachers” who “came to the profession after holding other jobs first.” So far so good. But the next paragraph subtly links these beloved teachers to poorly trained teachers. “It has never been easier for nonteachers to become public-school teachers, sometimes with just a few weeks of training” (p.46).
The next page talks about Teach for America (TFA), a program that places teachers in schools after a few weeks of training, and subtly links them to Ivy League graduates by saying that TFA got “a crush of applications from Ivy League and other elite applicants.” It does not say which percentage of TFA applicants came from Ivy League schools. It says that only 12% of 46,000 were accepted, which implies that a large number these 12% were largely Ivy League applicants. Again, though, it doesn’t state the percentages.
This is lying by implication.
The hidden truth is that 5520 applicants were accepted. This means that TFA expects that 5520 positions will be opening up around the nation. The Seattle Foundation is seeking grants for 150 TFA teachers in the Puget Sound area. How is this possible, given that state law doesn’t allow for this type of teacher? One possibility is that education reformers will be pushing for changes to state law.
Buried in the article is the reason why TFA will harm our classrooms. It gives an example of a first-year TFA teacher who couldn’t handle the discipline problems in the classroom and says, “This is a big problem with program like TNTP and TFA: they require a commitment of just one and two years” and “participants often spend the entire first year learning their jobs. A vocal minority of TFA veterans have complained that the program does little good for the students who must endure their inexperience” (p. 50).
This is lying by burying information.
How does Time propose to solve this problem? It goes on to describe a program called the Boston Teacher Residency, which requires a four-year commitment and a master’s degree in education. “Boston teacher residents spend that first awful year working with an experienced teacher, one who helps them learn the craft. The residents are in classrooms from Day One but never alone as most participants in the alterna-programs are.”
This is an argument against TFA programs that, however, lends credence to the idea that some alternative teacher certification programs are of high quality.
This is lying by association.
Having made the argument against TFA programs, it then presents a distracting argument about retiring baby boomers. “But half the nation’s 3.2 million teachers are baby boomers. They are retiring in droves.” Is this really why we need TFA teachers, or is it something else? The article goes on to say, “So until teaching becomes a more attractive long-term option, we’ll need both paid volunteers and professionals.” By using the word “so,” the article ties the need for TFA teachers to the retirement of baby boomers, but hides the fact that teaching is not an attractive long-term option.
This is hiding a lie in plain sight.
The final sentence returns to the implication that TFA teachers are from the Ivy Leagues and makes an emotional appeal to the readers. “How bad can it be that thousands if Ivy Leaguers, though inexperienced, want to help fill the void?”
This is lying by appealing to emotions.
Teacher Layoffs and Firings
The Time Magazine article has lied by implying we need TFA teachers because of retiring baby boomers is a lie. Why, then, do we anticipate a sudden need to staff 5520 classrooms with TFA teachers?
The answer is that other education reforms are making it easier to fire and lay off teachers. In July the superintendent of Washington D.C., Michelle Rhee, dismissed 127 teachers threatened to fire 737 more (p. 42). She used an evaluation that included “data about how much their students’ scores have improved compared with those of other kids performing at similar levels” (p. 42). That is, she used the results of standardized tests given to students as the basis of her layoffs.
The Seattle superintendent Goodloe-Johnson was planning to do the same thing – the proposal she introduced into the teacher’s contract gave her broad powers to lay off teachers based partly on the results of standardized tests given to students. Fortunately, concerted effort on the part of teachers and parents weakened her proposal considerably.
But if it’s happening in Seattle, where else is it happening?
Reform is Happening Quickly – But We Can Have an Impact
There is a concerted effort to make these “reforms” happen quickly. As Ripley writes, “The pace of change is, relatively speaking, breathtaking” (34).The movie Waiting for Superman, this article, and other PR efforts are meant to build popular support for “reforms” that have not been approved by teachers, parents, or students.
Some amount of education reform is unavoidable.
But, as teachers and parents have proven in Seattle and elsewhere, some of it can be stopped by concerted local efforts. We need to be closely monitoring our school districts and state legislators, educating one another, giving teachers our support, and making our voices heard.
x-posted from Kristin King's blog.
The Seattle teacher’s union just negotiated its labor contract with the district. In the middle of August, during contract negotiations, I got a letter from a teacher that raised all sorts of red flags for me. The district superintendent had just introduced a proposal that would (a) base teacher evaluations on the results of standardized tests given to students; and (b) give her broad powers to lay off teachers. Once I started looking into it, I learned that this proposal was part of a national push for some dangerous education reforms. The reforms are an attempt to:
- Weaken teacher’s unions
- Replace schools that failed under NCLB with charter schools;
- Staff those charter schools with inexperienced teachers; and
- Expand standardized testing and “teaching to the test”
I’ve been looking for ways to frame this conversation when talking to other parents, which is especially difficult because many parents and teachers did ask for some of the reforms in the teacher’s contract, and some of those reforms are an attempt to solve longstanding educational inequalities of race and class.
However, as the PR gets going for education reform, it is becoming easier to see and discuss the big picture. The September 20th issue of Time Magazine has two articles in support of these two reforms. They’re part of the national PR effort for education reform. Read uncritically, they paint a rosy picture. But we can read them critically to expose their lies; to see the hidden reform agenda; and inform ourselves about the dangers of this reform.
Lies About Charter Schools
The first article, “How to Fix Our Schools,” argues for charter schools. It begins with an announcement of a movie, “Waiting for Superman,” which depicts failing public schools and successful charter schools. It then goes on to state in big, bold numbers in a graphic that 17% of charter schools significantly outperform traditional public schools (p.38). But it buries the proof that charter schools on the whole do worse than traditional public schools. The article states, “But only 1 in 6 charter schools significantly outperforms traditional counterparts. And more than a third underperform.” This means that twice as many charter schools (2/6 vs. 1/6) underperform as overperform.
This is lying by burying statistics.
It’s true that some students leave schools with poor student test scores to attend schools with high student test scores. Leaving aside the problem that student test scores completely leave out the social/emotional development of our children, there is also the problem that a greater number of students attend poor charter schools than quality ones. The scenario depicted in Waiting For Superman, therefore, is essentially an emotional appeal. The final paragraph of the article builds on the emotional impact of the movie, by describing scenes in which “mothers weep and children cross their fingers in hopes of a desperate future,” and quotes an education reformer in saying “The rawness of the emotions of the parents gets to me – that unbelievable, desperate hope” (42).
This is lying by appealing to emotions rather than facts.
Lies about TFA Teachers
The next article, “How to Recruit Better Teachers,” makes an extremely sneaky argument for staffing “the toughest classrooms” with inexperienced teachers. It starts out with “beloved teachers” who “came to the profession after holding other jobs first.” So far so good. But the next paragraph subtly links these beloved teachers to poorly trained teachers. “It has never been easier for nonteachers to become public-school teachers, sometimes with just a few weeks of training” (p.46).
The next page talks about Teach for America (TFA), a program that places teachers in schools after a few weeks of training, and subtly links them to Ivy League graduates by saying that TFA got “a crush of applications from Ivy League and other elite applicants.” It does not say which percentage of TFA applicants came from Ivy League schools. It says that only 12% of 46,000 were accepted, which implies that a large number these 12% were largely Ivy League applicants. Again, though, it doesn’t state the percentages.
This is lying by implication.
The hidden truth is that 5520 applicants were accepted. This means that TFA expects that 5520 positions will be opening up around the nation. The Seattle Foundation is seeking grants for 150 TFA teachers in the Puget Sound area. How is this possible, given that state law doesn’t allow for this type of teacher? One possibility is that education reformers will be pushing for changes to state law.
Buried in the article is the reason why TFA will harm our classrooms. It gives an example of a first-year TFA teacher who couldn’t handle the discipline problems in the classroom and says, “This is a big problem with program like TNTP and TFA: they require a commitment of just one and two years” and “participants often spend the entire first year learning their jobs. A vocal minority of TFA veterans have complained that the program does little good for the students who must endure their inexperience” (p. 50).
This is lying by burying information.
How does Time propose to solve this problem? It goes on to describe a program called the Boston Teacher Residency, which requires a four-year commitment and a master’s degree in education. “Boston teacher residents spend that first awful year working with an experienced teacher, one who helps them learn the craft. The residents are in classrooms from Day One but never alone as most participants in the alterna-programs are.”
This is an argument against TFA programs that, however, lends credence to the idea that some alternative teacher certification programs are of high quality.
This is lying by association.
Having made the argument against TFA programs, it then presents a distracting argument about retiring baby boomers. “But half the nation’s 3.2 million teachers are baby boomers. They are retiring in droves.” Is this really why we need TFA teachers, or is it something else? The article goes on to say, “So until teaching becomes a more attractive long-term option, we’ll need both paid volunteers and professionals.” By using the word “so,” the article ties the need for TFA teachers to the retirement of baby boomers, but hides the fact that teaching is not an attractive long-term option.
This is hiding a lie in plain sight.
The final sentence returns to the implication that TFA teachers are from the Ivy Leagues and makes an emotional appeal to the readers. “How bad can it be that thousands if Ivy Leaguers, though inexperienced, want to help fill the void?”
This is lying by appealing to emotions.
Teacher Layoffs and Firings
The Time Magazine article has lied by implying we need TFA teachers because of retiring baby boomers is a lie. Why, then, do we anticipate a sudden need to staff 5520 classrooms with TFA teachers?
The answer is that other education reforms are making it easier to fire and lay off teachers. In July the superintendent of Washington D.C., Michelle Rhee, dismissed 127 teachers threatened to fire 737 more (p. 42). She used an evaluation that included “data about how much their students’ scores have improved compared with those of other kids performing at similar levels” (p. 42). That is, she used the results of standardized tests given to students as the basis of her layoffs.
The Seattle superintendent Goodloe-Johnson was planning to do the same thing – the proposal she introduced into the teacher’s contract gave her broad powers to lay off teachers based partly on the results of standardized tests given to students. Fortunately, concerted effort on the part of teachers and parents weakened her proposal considerably.
But if it’s happening in Seattle, where else is it happening?
Reform is Happening Quickly – But We Can Have an Impact
There is a concerted effort to make these “reforms” happen quickly. As Ripley writes, “The pace of change is, relatively speaking, breathtaking” (34).The movie Waiting for Superman, this article, and other PR efforts are meant to build popular support for “reforms” that have not been approved by teachers, parents, or students.
Some amount of education reform is unavoidable.
But, as teachers and parents have proven in Seattle and elsewhere, some of it can be stopped by concerted local efforts. We need to be closely monitoring our school districts and state legislators, educating one another, giving teachers our support, and making our voices heard.
x-posted from Kristin King's blog.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Demanding the Impossible
A few weeks ago I posted on Texas's decision to rewrite the history taught in K-12 public schools there. But it looks as though Arizona may be trumping Texas's efforts to use public education to turn out perfect little Republican clones. Even as lawsuits are being filed and boycotts being organized against Arizona because of its infamous new immigration law, it turns out that the state government of Arizona is also messing with the state's educational system in ways are likely meant to complement the effects of the immigration law. Here is the Huffington Post's description of Arizona's new educational policy:
As for the ban against ethnic studies, just look at that phrasing: promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals. Nice touch, wouldn't you say, classing resentment of inequality and injustice and ethnic pride with high treason? Since just about any discussion of race, gender, class, or ethnicity is likely to be deemed "promoting resentment"-- hell, any mention of it-- that wipes out just about all social studies. Certainly mentioning, say, the Goldman Sachs hearings must be held to do that, too, so there goes current events. (Or do they still teach that?) In fact, I'm wondering how it's possible to teach history or civics or social studies or economics without running the risk of "promoting resentment."
But also? If courses aren't "designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group," then they can't be designed for WASPS, either. Or boys. Or heterosexuals. Or Christians. Now just how are teachers going to pull off designing a course that's not meant for middle-class white boys without at the same time not talking about race, ethnicity, class, sex, or gender? Seems an impossible task. (One not even Texas is demanding of its curriculum.) I'm sure I couldn't do it. But the real question's got to be: is there anyone who can? Guess a lot of people should start preparing suits against that law, too.
Teaching K-12 has seldom been a picnic. But it seems to be getting harder and harder for teachers to cope with politicians' interference in the classroom.
Arizona's new immigration law is just about crime, its supporters say, but given that the state's new education policy equates ethnic studies programs with high treason, they may not be using the commonly accepted definition of "crime."But what counts as an "accent"? Everybody has an accent! Who gets to decide? Guess they're going to have to fire all English teachers.
Under the ban, sent to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer by the state legislature Thursday, schools will lose state funding if they offer any courses that "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals."
As ThinkProgress notes, the Tucson Unified School District's popular Mexican-American studies department is the target here. The state superintendent charges that the program exhibits "ethnic chauvinism."
Meanwhile, in a move that was more covert until the Wall Street Journal uncovered it, the Arizona Department of Education has told schools that teachers with "heavy" or "ungrammatical" accents are no longer allowed to teach English classes.
As outlined by the Journal, Arizona's recent pattern of discriminatory education policies is ironic -- and is likely a function of No Child Left Behind funding requirements -- given that the state spent a decade recruiting teachers for whom English was a second language.
As for the ban against ethnic studies, just look at that phrasing: promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals. Nice touch, wouldn't you say, classing resentment of inequality and injustice and ethnic pride with high treason? Since just about any discussion of race, gender, class, or ethnicity is likely to be deemed "promoting resentment"-- hell, any mention of it-- that wipes out just about all social studies. Certainly mentioning, say, the Goldman Sachs hearings must be held to do that, too, so there goes current events. (Or do they still teach that?) In fact, I'm wondering how it's possible to teach history or civics or social studies or economics without running the risk of "promoting resentment."
But also? If courses aren't "designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group," then they can't be designed for WASPS, either. Or boys. Or heterosexuals. Or Christians. Now just how are teachers going to pull off designing a course that's not meant for middle-class white boys without at the same time not talking about race, ethnicity, class, sex, or gender? Seems an impossible task. (One not even Texas is demanding of its curriculum.) I'm sure I couldn't do it. But the real question's got to be: is there anyone who can? Guess a lot of people should start preparing suits against that law, too.
Teaching K-12 has seldom been a picnic. But it seems to be getting harder and harder for teachers to cope with politicians' interference in the classroom.
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