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Tienken and Borst: Please Get Rid of Standardized Testing! It Doesn’t Work!

For Profit Corporations and the management of nonprofit organizations are adding to their wealth by getting state and federal governments to force our public school children to take more standardized tests than any other democratic country.

“Studies over the last 35 years have demonstrated that results from standardized tests are highly subjective and not entirely indicative of what is happening in the classroom. Findings from decades of scientific research suggest that standardized tests are blunt instruments, whose results can be predicted at the school and district levels by using family and community demographic data found in the U.S. Census.”

What does that previous paragraph mean when translated so most if not all readers will understand it?

In every developed country in the world, not just the United States, the children of the wealthy and/or educated do better on standardized tests than the children of the poor and/or undereducated. The poorer and less educated a family is, the lower those standardized scores tend to be.

Which country has best education system for children?

” Finland, which has the best schooling system globally, offers students free education and free meals from primary to high-school level. In Denmark, there are no educational dues until the students turn 16 years of age.”

Finland also doesn’t force its teachers to conduct standardized tests and its k-12 students to take those tests.

https://upjourney.com/which-education-system-is-the-best-in-the-world#:~:text=The%20expenses%20and%20equity%20vary,turn%2016%20years%20of%20age.

Diane Ravitch's blog

Christopher Tienken and Julia Larrea Borst wrote this article for NJ.com, where it is behind a paywall. It was reposted by the Network for Public Education blog:

In a guest editorial at NJ.com, Tienken, an associate professor at Seton Hall University, and Borst, executive director of Save Our Schools New Jersey, explain why it’s time to put an end to the big high stakes standardized test.

They wrote:

A veritable industrial-testing complex has been set up across the country that siphons educational resources from public schools to large corporations. The United States mandates more standardized tests of academic achievement than any other democratic country in the G20 group of nations. So, what have we learned from all of this testing?

Studies over the last 35 years have demonstrated that results from standardized tests are highly subjective and not entirely indicative of what is happening in the classroom. Findings from…

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Posted by on May 26, 2023 in Uncategorized

 

Josh Cowen: Texas Doesn’t Need Vouchers. Neither Does Any Other State.

School vouchers steal money from needy public schools, money that ends up going to often below-average private schools desperate for money so they don’t go out of business. Then, often, too many of those voucher students learn the hard way they gave up a good public school for a lousy private one and leave, returning to often better public schools in one to two years.

When students leave an inferior, cost-cutting, profit-generating voucher school, what’s left of that voucher money does not follow them, putting a bigger financial burden on OUR non-profit public schools.

More proof that today’s Republican Party, hijacked by Traitor Trump’s supporters, is nothing but a mindless, mean Wrecking Ball.

Diane Ravitch's blog

Josh Cowen is a professor of education policy at Michigan State University. He has been involved in research on vouchers for two decades. He wrote the following article for The Houston Chronicle.

Every state has versions of Texas’ Snapshot Day: the time early in the school year when districts submit pupil counts to their state education agency. How many students go to school in each district determines how much money districts receive each year, as well as a variety of other services and programs.

Not every state is considering a school voucher program, however, and as the Texas Legislature debates that possibility (officially called an education savings account), details like pupil count are going to matter a lot more than either voucher supporters or opponents are considering right now.

Here’s how we know.

I’ve been studying school choice policy for two decades. That work includes official evaluations on behalf…

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Posted by on May 6, 2023 in Uncategorized

 

James Harvey: How We Cooked the Books to Produce a Deeply Flawed “A Nation at Risk”

James Harvey, a member of the staff that wrote what ended up being called “A Nation at Risk”, reveals why/how our government in 1983, declared war on OUR public schools, our teachers, our family values, and our children.

A war that has made some wealthy while letting our schools rot, and turned our public schools into a Ukrainian battle field, under endless attack.

“The bumbling began immediately,” Harvey writes, when “Reagan startled the commission members by hailing their call for prayer in the schools, school vouchers, and the abolition of the Department of Education.”

Cherry Picking the Facts — Cooking the Books

“There were at least three problems with what the commission finally produced. First, it settled on its conclusions and then selected evidence to support them. Second, its argument was based on shockingly shoddy logic. And third, it proposed a curricular response that ignored the complexity of American life and the economic and racial divisions within the United States.” …

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Lloyd Lofthouse

James Harvey, a member of the staff that wrote what ended up being called “A Nation at Risk”, reveals why/how our government in 1983, declared war on OUR public schools, our teachers, our family values, and our children.

A war that has made some wealthy while letting our schools rot, and turned our public schools into a Ukrainian battle field, under endless attack.

“The bumbling began immediately,” Harvey writes, when “Reagan startled the commission members by hailing their call for prayer in the schools, school vouchers, and the abolition of the Department of Education.”

Cherry Picking the Facts

Cooking the Books

“There were at least three problems with what the commission finally produced. First, it settled on its conclusions and then selected evidence to support them. Second, its argument was based on shockingly shoddy logic. And third, it proposed a curricular response that ignored the complexity of American…

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NYC Public School Parent: Why Charter Schools Disgust Me

In 1900, seven percent of Americans graduated from high school and three percent from college. The poverty rate was also about forty percent. If we the people lose our accountable Public Schools to publicly funded, private sector unaccountable Charter Schools, the United States may return to those 1900 ratios.

Yes, in case you didn’t know it, real public schools are accountable to state and federal laws, but publicly funded, private sector Charter Schools ARE NOT!

Public Money we pay in local, state and federal taxes and fees, funds both OUR public schools and those Charter Schools we do not own. Every public dollar that goes to an unaccountable Charter School is lost to OUR accountable public schools.

What should we call schools that are not held accountable to the same laws that guide our public schools, laws from our democratic process passed by our elected representatives, laws that are supposed to protect all of our children and insure that all of our children are allowed to learn.

Diane Ravitch's blog

A regular commenter, who signs as NYC Public School Parent, is sharply critical of the games charters play. She doesn’t like the way they push kids out as young as 5 or 6 for misbehaving. She doesn’t like their boasting about test scores when the schools with the highest scores are selective, either in their admissions or their attrition or both.

She writes approvingly of schools that seek out those students with the greatest needs, like the one funded by LeBron James in Akron.

Didn’t the LeBron James-funded school in Akron do just that — specifically took the most struggling students? And wasn’t it part of the public school system? THAT is what all charters should be doing.

The so called “successful” and expanding charter chains have almost universally prioritized the needs of their CEOs over the needs of the most vulnerable children. Their approach to teaching students is that…

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Posted by on April 22, 2023 in Uncategorized

 

Secretary Cardona, NAEP Proficient Is NOT Grade Level!

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, I want you to stop spreading the ignorant lie that the majority of American children cannot read at grade level.

Simply put:

BASIC means reading at grade level.
BELOW BASIC means reading below grade level.
PROFICIENT means reading above grade level.

It is a lie that the majority of Americans grow up reading below grade level.

How do I know that and why don’t you?

“Between 700-900 million books are sold in the US per year.”

“An annual study found that the total number of magazine readers in the U.S. remained above 220 million in every year between 2016 and 2020, having previously hovered around the 210 and 215 million mark.”

“While 91% of all adults read magazines, those aged 35 and younger are more likely to read magazines (93-94%). In addition, 73% of adults agreed that reading a magazine or book in print format is more enjoyable than reading on a device.”

“Thirty-seven percent of fourth-grade students performed below the NAEP Basic level in 2022, which was 4 percentage points higher compared to 2019 and not significantly different from 1992.”

Can you subtract, Secretary Cardona?

100 – 37 = 63% are reading at or above grade level.

Secretary Cardona, do you know how many children live in poverty in the US?

If you don’t, you should!

You should also know that the leading factor that causes children to read below basic (below grade level in every country in the world) is poverty, not the quality of our public schools and public school teachers.

Diane Ravitch's blog

For the past dozen years, since the attack on public schools went into high gear, the same lie has been trotted out again and again to defame public schools. The slanderers say that 2/3 of American students are reading “below grade level.”

At Congressional hearings on the education budget on Tuesday April 18, the same ridiculous claim was made by U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. He said that only 33% are reading at proficiency. He said this is “appalling and not acceptable for the United States. 33% of our students are reading on Grade level.” (At about 45:00).

This is nonsense. Its’s frankly appalling to hear Secretary Cardona repeating the lie spread by rightwing public school haters. He really should be briefed by officials from the National Assessment Governing Board before he testifies again.

On the NAEP (National Assessment of Educationsl Progress) tests, “proficient” does not represent grade…

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Posted by on April 19, 2023 in Uncategorized

 

Forgotten Pre-Covid Report Reveals Standardized Testing Weaknesses in PA

Forgotten Pre-Covid Report Reveals Standardized Testing Weaknesses in PA

I think it is safe to say that most public school principals and teachers, many parents, and most if not all students hate standardized tests.

There is a good reason for hating standardized tests. They are a waste of time, prove nothing, and cause stress. The only toxic benefits of standardized tests are the profits from public dollars for the test makers. The CEO of one of if not the largest test maker is David Coleman. He earns about one million dollars a year from those stressful, waste of time, expensive tests we the people pay for through taxes that are supposed to fund OUR public schools.

gadflyonthewallblog

The majority of teachers and principals in Pennsylvania hate standardized tests.

An increasing number of parents are refusing to allow their kids to take the tests.

And there may be better alternatives to the state’s Keystone Exams.

These were just some of the key findings of a blockbuster report from June 2019 by the state General Assembly’s Legislative Budget and Finance Committee.

The report, “Standardized Tests in Public Education” was published about 9 months before the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

It effectively got lost in the chaos that followed the global pandemic.

However, now that things are returning to some semblance of normalcy, it seems that bureaucrats from the state Department of Education (PDE) are taking the wrong lessons from the report while the legislature seems to have forgotten it entirely.

The report was conducted because of legislation written by state Sen. Ryan P. Aument (R-Lancaster County). It directed…

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Posted by on April 15, 2023 in Uncategorized

 

Philadelphia: “Abbott Elementary” and the Real Story Behind Charters

“If our school’s not good enough, why don’t they just fix our school?”

That pull quote from this blog post is an excellent question that I want to answer.

I think the publicly funded, private sector, secretive and often inferior Charter school Industry doesn’t want to fix our public schools. The reason “they” don’t want to fix whatever is allegedly wrong with out public schools isn’t because of the quality of teaching and it isn’t about our children.

I know the real reason is all about the money that’s making charter CEOs and managers wealthy.

One example:

“Eva Moskowitz, who’s in charge of Success Academy Charter Schools in New York City and nowhere else, pulls down a salary of nearly $1 million a year.” — “Success has 45 schools with 17,000 students from kindergarten through high school.”

How much does a Public School Superintendent make in New York?

“The average School Superintendent salary in New York is $185,639 as of February 27, 2023, but the range typically falls between $151,635 and $223,999.”

New York City’s public school system is by far the largest in the United States. During the 2017-2018 school year, more than 1.1 million students attended approximately 1,800 public schools administered by the New York City Department of Education (DOE).

Eva Moskowitz with 17,000 students in her 45 private sector Charter Schools earns almost $1,000,000 annually from public dollars that should be going to real public school and not into her bank account.

The top paid superintendent that works for New York City’s real public schools serving more than 1,000,000 students is paid less than one-quarter of what Moskowitz pays herself as the CEO of a small, private sector Charter School chain with 17,000 students. The public money that flows to Moskowitz small charter chain should be going to New York City’s public schools and not into Moskowitz’s bank account making her richer than she already is.

The United States now has four K-12 education systems instead of two.

Before war was declared on our public schools in 1983, there were two education systems.

1. The K=12 public school systems that the public pays for.
2. A private sector k-12 school system that wealthy parents paid for.

Today we have four K-12 public school systems. What has changed?

3. Publicly funded, Private Sector charter schools without locally elected community school board.
4. Publicly funded, private-sector k-12 online virtual schools where children do not have to go to school everyday. They learn from home through their mobile, tablet, laptop or desktop.

What is the public getting for its money funding those private sector, very profitable online virtual schools?

“Virtual schools, which offer full-time instruction online and represent a slim 1 percent of all high schools…. The average graduation rate for virtual schools is 40 percent.”

What about the graduation rate for real, brick and mortar public high schools? “As of 2021, the national graduation rate is currently 85.3%, an all-time high.”

The United States also has two sets of rules for its confusing, publicly-funded K-12 education sector.

There are rules for real public schools, but no rules for the publicly funded, secretive private sector charters and online, virtual school, meaning the public has no idea how their money is being spent.

Diane Ravitch's blog

Peter Greene turned his blog over to an experienced journalist who covered education in Philadelphia for years. What’s the real story behind the outraged reaction by the charter lobby to “Abbott Elementary”?

Bill Hangley, Jr., is a free lance writer who worked the education beat in Philadelphia, and as such he has some thoughts about the charter scene in Philly as reflected through recent episodes of Abbott Elementary. I’m pleased to present his guest post on the subject.

Hangley writes:

America’s school-choice lobby can relax: when ABC’s Abbott Elementary returns this Wednesday [April 5], the plot will hinge on teacher qualifications, not charter school takeovers.

That’s good news for a community that’s used to being taken seriously – very seriously. Wherever charter supporters go, they usually have friends to defend their interests. But the choice lobby wasn’t represented in the Abbott writers’ room. Nobody stood in the way as…

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Posted by on April 4, 2023 in Uncategorized

 

California: What’s Wrong with Charter Schools?

What’s wrong with Charter School in California and why they should not be funded with public money?

Diane Ravitch's blog

In 2010, I traveled to California to

Guest post created by a longtime Northern California parent volunteer education advocate

  • Charter schools take resources away from the public schools, harming public schools and their students. All charter schools do this – whether they’re opportunistic and for-profit or presenting themselves as public, progressive and enlightened.
  • Charter schools are free to pick and choose and exclude or kick out any student they want. They’re not supposed to, but in real life there’s no enforcement. Many impose demanding application processes, or use mandatory “intake counseling,” or require work hours or financial donations from families – so that only the children of motivated, supportive, compliant families get in. Charter schools publicly deny this, but within many charter schools, the selectivity is well known and viewed as a benefit. Admittedly, families in those schools like that feature – with the more challenging students kept out…

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Posted by on March 28, 2023 in Uncategorized

 

Michigan: For-Profit Charter Schools Are a Disaster

The primary goal of for-profit charters, that are publicly funded, literally stealing money from our K-12 public schools, is making money, growing wealth, not educating students.

Diane Ravitch's blog

Cassandra Ulbrich is the former president of the Michigan State Board of Education. She is also a member of the board of the Network for Public Education. In this post, which appeared in Bridge Michigan, she describes the failure of for-profit charters, whose top goal is making money, not educating students.

She writes:

When it comes to education, Michigan’s number one. Unfortunately, that’s not a good thing.

Once again, Michigan has the dubious distinction of being the state with the highest percentage of charter schools run by for-profit corporations in the nation. Eighty-one percent of Michigan’s nearly 300 charter schools contract with private management companies, often referred to as Charter Management Organizations (CMO).

headshot

Casandra Ulbrich is the former president of the State Board of Education.

What do we get in exchange? Mediocre results and a lack of financial transparency.

As the former president of the Michigan State Board of…

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Posted by on March 3, 2023 in Uncategorized

 

Josh Cowen: There Is No Upside to Vouchers

What if I told you there was a plot to destroy public education in the United States and throw the country back to 1900? Find out who is funding this plot to destroy our country.

Diane Ravitch's blog

Josh Cowen is the voucher lobby’s worst nightmare. He was a participant in voucher research from its beginnings. He knows the research as well as anyone in the country. He knows that vouchers have failed. And unlike many others in this tight-knit world, he declined to climb aboard the gravy train funded by billionaires. He determined to tell the truth: vouchers hurt kids.

In this article, as in many others that he has written, he explains that there is no upside to vouchers. They subsidize kids already in private school. They harm the kids who leave public schools. They defund the public schools that the vast majority of children attend.

He begins:

What if I told you there is a policy idea in education that, when implemented to its full extent, caused some of the largest academic drops ever measured in the research record?

What if I told you that…

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Posted by on March 2, 2023 in Uncategorized