A reader forwarded this excellent article that appeared in the Denver Post.

The author Robert Zubrin scanned the state’s tables ranking schools based in large part on test scores. And this was his amazing discovery:

“So, does this testing data, acquired at great expense in both money and class time, tell us which schools are doing their job and which are performing poorly? Not at all. Rather, what really jumps out of the data is the extremely strong relationship between school rank and student family income. This correlation is so strong that it is possible to predict the rank of the school in advance with fair accuracy just by using a simple formula that multiples its percentage of low-income students by 4 and subtracts 20….

“In short, what we have managed to learn is that the children of doctors and lawyers do better on standardized tests than the children of…

Please help this great group of students crowd-source a national convening of student leaders to fight false reforms.

I first learned about its spokesperson Hannah Nguyen when she challenged Michelle Rhee. I subsequently met Hannah and gave her a hug when I visited Occidental College in Los Angeles last fall.

Hannah and her allies must raise $2,000 by February 15. I sent a donation. Send whatever you can: $5, $10, $25, $50, $100.

The EmpowerED 2014 conference now has a website where you can find all the information you need:

http://empowerED2014.com/

This is a statement from the organizers:

Students all over the country, from Portland to Philadelphia, are tired of feeling powerless and unheard when it comes to decisions that affect their education. That’s why they’ve begun to form student unions and fight back against threats to their educational rights. From massive walkouts and sit-ins to creative street theater and…

In this trenchant analysis of the Common Core, Stan Karp explains that the fundamental problem is not about their content but their context.

While people argue the merits of the Common Core, public education itself is under assault:

Karp writes:

Today everything about the Common Core, even the brand name—the Common Core State Standards—is contested because these standards were created as an instrument of contested policy. They have become part of a larger political project to remake public education in ways that go well beyond slogans about making sure every student graduates “college and career ready,” however that may be defined this year. We’re talking about implementing new national standards and tests for every school and district in the country in the wake of dramatic changes in the national and state context for education reform. These changes include:

A 10-year experiment in the use of federally mandated standards and…

Senator Kathleen Vinehout revealed a plan hatched behind closed doors to close 5% of thestate’s schools every year and turn them over to private corporations.

She wrote:

“The latest version of the bill was crafted behind closed doors; unlike three years ago when a wide-ranging group developed a system to test and report the progress of all students attending school with public money. Private school advocates publically agreed to the same public school accountability standards but privately lobbied for something different.

“The bill reversed current law requiring all students be tested using the same type of exam. This bill allowed private schools to choose their own type of assessment and even choose the students who took the test – allowing them to game the system.

“Concealed in the bill was a way to gradually close more and more public schools or turn them over to independent private charter operators.

“For…

In this post, which arrived a few days ago as a comment, Ron Lapekas, a retired teacher, explains why standardized tests have no value or validity for many students:

“I am a retired teacher. I always thought the SBT’s (Stupid Bubble Tests) had little value for my East Los Angeles 99% Latino students for several reasons.

“First, vocabulary necessary both to understand the questions and the answer choices made any test results meaningless, even in math. If you don’t understand the question how can you evaluate the correctness of the answer?

“Second, we didn’t get the results until the end of summer. I never gave SBT’s to my students because, as I told them, I grade work, not answers. If a student doesn’t know which answers were incorrect, if there is no way to review how the answers were selected, and if there is no way to give feedback to…

This is not good news for Pearson, whose stock recently took a tumble. The Chicago Teachers Union is supporting parents who boycott the obsolete ISAT:

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                   CONTACT:                      Stephanie Gadlin

February 3, 2014                                                                                                                               312/329-6250      

CTU SUPPORTS PARENT BOYCOTT OF LOW-STAKES ISAT

Illinois State Achievement Test is costly, obsolete and steals learning time

CHICAGO—In advance of the Illinois State Achievement Test (ISAT) to be issued to Chicago Public School students March 3-14, 2014, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) today announced support for parents choosing to opt their children out of testing and renewed a call for the Chicago Board of Education to cease administration of the ISAT.

The ‘low stakes’ test is administered over the course of eight days in all elementary schools. Formerly used to help qualify 7^th grade students for selective enrollment high schools. The district recently issued a…

It is hard to choose which state has done the most to undermine public education: Louisiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin come to mind, but Michigan is right up there as a state whose Governor Rick Snyder is working hard to crush public education. There is the fact that some 80% of the charters in Michigan are run by for-profit operators. And note too that entire low-performing districts have been given to for-profit corporations.

But the worst of Snyder’s inventions is the deceptively-named Education Achievement Authority. Here the governor has gathered the state’s low-performing schools for special treatment.

Eclectablog, a Michigan blog, decided to go behind the claims of success and manufactured data, and instead to talk to teachers who work for the EAA. The stories are harrowing, including accounts of physical abuse, drugs in the schools, and an atmosphere of fear. Some teachers are afraid of violent teachers…

This blogger has gathered the latest wave of bad news from Tennessee, showing the emptiness of the Republican Governor Bill Haslam’s efforts to outsource everything public to whoever wants to make money.

Even though President Obama praised red-state Tennessee as a prime example of the success of Race to the Top, conveniently ignoring the other Race to the Top winners where NAEP scores stagnated, things are not going well for corporate-style reform in the Volunteer State.

Haslam and his TFA Commissioner Kevin Huffman (ex-husband of Michelle Rhee) have the support of a far-right legislature, but their plans are still in disarray.

Nearly half the superintendents bravely signed a letter protesting Huffman’s heavy-handed mandates (seems to be the custom with corporate reform superintendents, brooking no dissent from the peons). Now parents have formed a new organization to fight Haslam and Huffman’s plans to outsource as many public schools to private corporations…

The night before I addressed the Kentucky School Boards Association, I had dinner with a group of teachers and parents from Tennessee. The group included Mama Bears, BATS, and TREES.

One of the BATS was Lauren Hopson from Knox County, who teaches third grade children. She is smart, strong, experienced, and wise. She is also outspoken, as I learned by watching this video, in which she let the board know what teachers really think: They are tired of being pushed around. They are tired of an evaluation system tied to test scores. They are tired of pointless training. They are tired of foisting test after test on little children. They are tired of getting training from consultants with less experience than they have. They are tired of the charade foisted upon them by the state of Tennessee. They want to teach. What an idea!

When Lauren gave her talk…

This comment came from Barbara Aran, a retired music teacher in Los Angeles:

She wrote:

This what I planned to say to the LAUSD Board on Tuesday December 17th, but couldn’t get in–this is what I would have said on that day:

My name is Barbara Aran. I am a retired LAUSD elementary teacher. Today I speak for the school communities of Wilshire Crest Elementary and Laurel Elementary schools.

Ladies and gentlemen:

Let’s describe an act of cowardice. An action taken as a clever sneak attack on the instrumental music program with no time to respond. The time line was as short as possible so that people would not know in advance.

Music instruments are being collected and removed from the students AT THIS VERY MOMENT AS I SPEAK TO YOU at these two schools with no prior notice to anyone in the school communities, or communication from the district…