Erasing the Rhee Miracle and Why the Venom -Gary Imhoff

UPDATED CONSTANTLY: Like every 10 minutes as more info on RheeGate comes in.
I just received Gary's follow-up to the Erasing the Rhee Miracle piece and posted it underneath - so even if you read this piece go on down and continue. And make sure to enjoy Failing Schools blog Dr. Seuss version of EraserGate.

• 
  GFBrandenburg's Blog

  DC Officials Once Again Covering Up the DCPS Cheating Scandal?
• 
  
  The Answer Sheet

  ‘Rhee the Reformer: A Cautionary Tale’
  
  Diane Ravitch: Shame on Michelle Rhee 

Erasing the Rhee Miracle

Dear Erasers:

Was the Rhee miracle — the rapid rise in standardized test scores in at least some DC public schools — in fact a miracle? Or was it a scam? Was it systematic cheating? Was there a scheme to erase incorrect answers on multiple choice questions and replace them with the correct answers? A well researched and well documented article by Jack Gillum and Marisol Bello in USA Today on Monday leads to the inescapable conclusion that DCPS, or at least several people who held power in positions within DCPS, told students and parents about improvements that students didn’t really make, told the people of this city about achievements that DCPS didn’t really make, and got paid bonuses from the DC and federal governments and private foundations on the basis of test scores that didn’t really improve.

Or at least that conclusion is nearly inescapable. DCPS is disputing it. Current Chancellor Kaya Henderson and past Chancellor Michelle Rhee are disputing it (though Henderson has now agreed to refer the matter to the Inspector General). They say that their internal investigation and the investigation by their paid consultant, Caveon, didn’t support the charges. So only the thing that supports the charges is the facts.

Mayor Vince Gray hasn’t taken a stand on this scandal yet, but he should soon. This isn’t his scandal. It happened under Mayor Adrian Fenty, Rhee, and Rhee’s deputy Henderson. Gray doesn’t need to claim it as his own and accept responsibility for it, though by hiring Henderson Gray has already associated himself closely with Rhee’s claims for the effectiveness of her so-called “reform” of DCPS.

It’s not the initial scandal that causes the most damage to a government or a politician; it’s the attempt to cover up the scandal. Gray can choose to defend Fenty’s and Rhee’s administration of DCPS over the past four years or to put some distance between them and him. He would be smart not to try to pass the investigation on to others, but instead to demand that his Deputy Mayor for Education and the State Board of Education conduct thorough independent investigations. (The city council and the State Board of Education have committed to hold hearings, but single hearings by either body will not be sufficient.) Besides, it’s the Deputy Mayor for Education who has the power and authority to supervise the Chancellor. Then the mayor needs to fire anyone in the DCPS hierarchy who is proven to have altered test scores, countenanced altering test scores, or known of the alterations and not reported them. Rhee fired teachers while making false, unsubstantiated accusations against them; the Gray administration should not duplicate that cruel carelessness. But the Gray administration should also not allow this scandal to be diminished or whitewashed. Let the die-hard Fenty and Rhee supporters try to excuse and explain away this scandal; it’s theirs.

USA Today article: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-03-28-1Aschooltesting28_CV_N.htm?csp=hf
USA Today follow-up article: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-03-29-dcschools29_ST_N.htm
DCPS response: http://www.dcpswatch.com/dcps/110328.htm
Caveon Test Security’s response: http://www.dcpswatch.com/dcps/110328b.htm
Rhee response: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/73991-day-three-documents#document/p76/a13060
Politico article, Ben Smith, “Rhee, DC Defend Test Investigation,” http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0311/Rhee_DC_defends_test_investigation.html?showall
New York Magazine profile of Rhee, March 20 issue, http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/michelle-rhee-2011-3/
Salon article, “Paranoid Michelle Rhee Blames Her ‘Enemies’ for Cheating Report,” http://www.salon.com/life/education/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/03/29/rhee_cheating
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

April 3, 2011

Why the Venom

Dear Erasers:
Last Wednesday, the Washington Post’s editorial board downplayed the extent of the DCPS scandal about cheating on standardized tests that was uncovered by USA Today by implying the problem was limited to one school: “The report centered on Crosby S. Noyes Education Center in Northeast Washington, credited with dramatic boosts in student achievement. There were extraordinarily high numbers of erasures for three years at the school. One Noyes classroom averaged 12.7 wrong-to-right erasures per student on a 2009 reading test when the average for seventh-graders in all DC schools on that test was less than one.” Then it went on to list all the possible innocent reasons for such a high rate of erasures at Noyes that were speculated on by DCPS’s investigator, Caveon. But in the same day’s Metro section, reporter Bill Turque had given a more accurate assessment of the scandal: “The issue emerged Monday when USA Today reported unusually high rates of erasures on answer sheets in more than 100 DC public schools from 2008 to 2010. At some schools, wrong answers were replaced by correct ones at rates too high to be random, according to statisticians consulted by the paper,” and also on that day Jay Mathews’s blog said one of the most convincing things about the scandal was that it was widespread through more than a hundred schools. Of course, it may be too much to expect the Post’s editorial board to read the whole long report and its supporting documents in a competing newspaper, but they should have been able to describe the extent of the cheating scandal accurately just by checking with a reporter and a columnist in their own paper.

#####
Mathews and Turque, however, were caught in the middle of Michelle Rhee’s contortions after USA Today’s investigation was published. Rhee’s original reaction was to blast the USA Today reporters as enemies of education reform. She then spoke with Mathews and told him her initial comments were stupid and that cheating may have occurred. And then she spoke with Ben Stein at Politico and claimed that Mathews misquoted her — so that both Mathew’s article and Turque’s, which was based on her interview with Mathews, were wrong.

#####
But the question is not how many reporters and columnists Rhee will run over on her way to spinning the story. Rhee is gone from the DC schools now. The issue is whether this will be a new day in DCPS. Kaya Henderson’s reaction to the scandals, in her E-mail to DCPS principals and administrators last Friday (which was reprinted in full by Turque on Saturday), was “The one frustration I feel as a result of the recent allegations is that it has sullied the reputation of our hard working teachers and principals.” Henderson has telegraphed the message that teachers and principals will be the targets and the victims of any investigation that she or her allies run. If DCPS controls the investigation of the cheating, no investigator will be allowed to look into any potential involvement of DCPS administrators or central office. Under Rhee and Fenty, the first priority of DCPS was to construct and protect a false narrative of educational wonders in order to build administrators’ careers and reputations, while ruining the careers and reputations of hundreds of teachers. Below, Richard Rothblum asks me why I feel venomous toward Rhee, when she “tried to shake the system out of the doldrums.” That’s why.

#####
Post’s editorial downplaying the cheating scandal, “Cheating Allegations Can’t Mask Real Gains in D.C.’s Schools,”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/cheating-allegations-cant-mask-real-gains-in-dcs-schools/2011/03/30/AFeh8Q5B_story.html
Rhee’s original response to USA Today article: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/73991-day-three-documents#document/p76/a13060
Jay Matthews column quoting Rhee as backtracking on test cheating issue:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/rhee-calls-her-remarks-on-test-erasures-stupid/2011/03/30/AFgUfe7B_print.html
Bill Turque’s article, “Rhee Now Concedes Students’ Test Answers May Have Been Erased,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/rhee-acknowledges-possible-cheating-on-school-tests/2011/03/30/AFBKaI5B_story.html
Jay Mathews’ blog item, “School List Reveals Size of DC Test Answer Erasure Issue,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggle/post/school-list-reveals-size-of-dc-test-answer-erasure-issue/2011/03/29/AF5j7xrB_blog.html
Politico article in which Rhee says Jay Matthews misquoted her:
Ben Smith, “Rhee, DC Defend Test Investigation,” http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0311/Rhee_DC_defends_test_investigation.html?showall
Bill Turque, “Henderson: Press Trying ‘To Knock Us Off Our Game,’”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-schools-insider/post/henderson-press-trying-to-knock-us-off-our-game/2011/04/02/AFZSr5OC_blog.html
New York Magazine (correction, in the last issue of themail, attributed to The New Yorker) profile of Rhee, March 20 issue, http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/michelle-rhee-2011-3/ Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

---------
MUST READ AT NORMS NOTES. GEM'S JULIE CAVANAGH AND SAM COLEMAN WERE PART OF THE NYC DELEGATION

At Ford Foundation, a harsh critique of urban school closures

Running into a Former Student

With all the attacks on teachers, there are times when even I begin to question things I did as a teacher. Did I really put children first? Or was I just acting like a selfish adult?

I was at Long Island University on Friday in downtown Brooklyn to tape two former charter school parents for a final segment to our movie. We were waiting in the lobby for Leonie Haimson who was doing the interview. She was a little late. And I was glad she was. A woman was walking by and said, "Mr. Scott?" I looked at her. "It's Milagros," she said.

The minute she said her name I recognized her but wasn't sure from which year (they all run together now.) "You were in my 6th grade class, right?" "5th and 6th," she said. Poor girl, suffering me for two years. Yes, it came back quickly. I only moved up with a class twice. This was the '77 and '78 class. She must be in her 40's. Oy!

I had two great years with them, especially the 2nd year when there was no need to spend a month on routines. We really got rolling from the first day back.

And she was a pleasure to have in class. She told me she still lives in the old neighborhood. I had run into Milagros when she brought her young son to our school in the 90's. "Don't you have a son," I asked? "He's 22 now."Double Oy! "And I have an eleven year old too. I've been trying to find you on Facebook," she said. I gave her my card. "Oh," I asked as she started to walk away, "what are you doing here?" "I work in the library." YES! One after another as I run into former students I find they have jobs and careers. We weren't total failures as the ed deformers would have the world believe.

She started to walk away again, turned and came back, semi-whispering: "You were my favorite teacher."

Milagros, you made my day, week, month and maybe year. And best of all – she recognized me.

While I'm bragging: Here is a comment from another former student from the class of '82. This was the same 4th grade class that Ernie Silva, the actor, was in. I wrote a review of his one man show on Feb. 27 where I made the point that the role of teachers are overrated by the ed deformers (with evil intent) and Diane P. saw it on Facebook and left this comment on the blog:

Mr. Scott,

This review brought me to tears. As our fourth grade teacher (yes, we are all about 39 now YIKES) you were probably THE most influential teacher we had. Your grace and love for each of us still lives in our hearts today. It's ok to take pride in all our successes... you are a piece in our past that shaped our future! Thank you from your 39 year-old student.

Diane P.
class of 81-82

Of course in today's ed deform world, what's love got to do with it?
-----------
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Why Does Kenneth Brody Want to Remove Link to $100,000 Donation to Anti-Teacher Group?

Since its dramatic entry into Illinois in October 2010, when it donated more than a half million dollars to Illinois politicians prior to the November 2, 2010 election, Stand for Children has tried to push legislation through that most closely resembles the union-busting Republican laws that are now being passed in states from Wisconsin to Ohio. Stand for Children's Illinois law, called "Performance Counts," tries to make teacher strikes illegal and would bar the Chicago Teachers Union from negotiating over anything other than wages....  Substance

How does this tie into The NY Times Sunday Styles lead article today is Erasing the Digital Past about hiring online reputation managers to help recast their web profiles? It reminded me of an email I received last week.

Good afternoon,
I’m writing to inquire about your opt-out policy for your service, so my information does not appear in searches? Please let me know what the procedure for doing so? Thank you,

After asking for the link, I get this:

Thank you so much for your prompt response. Here is a link to the information I would like to have removed http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/2011/01/back-to-search-results-archive-report.html. If you could remove the name Kenneth Brody, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you very much.

So here is what Kenneth Brody wants removed:

Brody, Kenneth (Manager, DRW Trading Group). $100,000 (on December 23, 2010).

And what organization did Kenneth Brody give 100 grand too? Stand for Children. Instead of actually putting all that money into a school, Kenneth Brody joined other millionaires into funneling money into an anti-teacher campaign. Screw you Kenneth Brody.

The information was based on work done by George Schmidt of Substance in Chicago exposing Stand for Children. The April 1 edition of Substance had an article on a debate between Chicago Teacher Union president Karen Lewis and a shill for SFC. For a change from what we saw in NYC for so long and continue to see nationally, Lewis refused to play nice as she stood up and refuted the false facts SFC and all ed deformers are spewing.

Stand for Children Illinois Director Letoy Ridgnal tried and failed to repeat the organization's cliched answers to major questions about the public schools, while Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis continued to emphasize facts that Stand for Children and its wealthy supporters are trying to dismiss or ignore.






It took Phillip Jackson (right) nearly one minute to stop a tirade from Letoy Ridgnal (above left) when the "facts" Stand for Children had been quoting in Illinois were exposed as fabrications by CTU President Karen Lewis (center). Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.

Read the entire report.

Here is what George wrote to me on Jan. 22, 2011:

Norm:

Below is the lead of a story I'll be putting up at substancenews.net tomorrow and then expanding on through various investigations over the next months. In my opinion, it's the most important investigative story I've ever done. I think a similar story is probably in front of you in New York, but based on our experience here, we have to do this story ourselves, since our corporate media won't touch it or anything near it.

The amounts given by the individuals who were organized to finance the Stand for Children PAC in December 2010 are far beyond what any teacher or typical citizen could afford, leading to the observation that the Plutocracy (a government by the richest people) is trying to bash Illinois public schools and teacher unions behind a smokescreen of disinterested "school reform" groups. Stand for Children was based in Oregon at the time it made its initial contributions to Illinois politicians during the month before the November 2, 2010 election and finally opened a Chicago office in December 2010. One of the unanswered questions is how a group of the wealthiest people in Chicago and the suburbs learned about Stand for Children and decided to donate huge sums of money to it.
George Schmidt

Here is the lead:

Two of the world's wealthiest families, both from Chicago (the Crowns and the Pritzkers), and several of Chicago's wealthiest individuals (including Kenneth Griffin and Sam Zell), poured more than $3.4 million into the newest Political Action Campaign (PAC) fund in Illinois during the last months of 2010. Most of the money was contributed during December 2010. The result was that "Stand for Children Illinois" — which didn't exist four months earlier and only opened its Illinois offices in Chicago in December 2010 — had nearly $3.5 million in its PAC at the end of 2010. Stand for Children Illinois opened its first office in Illinois (at 300 W. Adams St.) in December 2010. The office was finally opened two months after Stand for Children began operations in Springfield with huge contributions to several Illinois politicians during the month prior to the November 2, 2010 election.

The pre-election campaign contributions totaled more than $600,000. They are in addition to the money now in the Stand for Children PAC and came through the Oregon headquarters of the group.

Stand for Children — along with the Illinois Business Roundtable, Advance Illinois, and the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago — sponsored and lobbied for the controversial legislation called "Performance Counts" during the lame duck session of the 2010 Illinois General Assembly. "Performance Counts" was defeated despite intense lobbying by the four powerful business groups in December and January 2010 - 2011 by a coalition of unions and community organizations committed to improving the public schools. Public school improvement in Illinois and elsewhere is now in stark distinction to corporate "school reform" of the type promoted by Stand for Children, a distinction that will become more clear during the years ahead. Stand for Children and its four allies have vowed to bring "Performance Counts" back, whole and in its parts, for 2011.

Nearly identical bills have been introduced in other states.

The contributors to the Stand for Children PAC in December 2010 are two of the world's wealthiest families, both of which are based in Chicago (and the Chicago suburbs), the Crowns and the Pritzkers. Others who added their wealth to the Stand for Children PAC during December 2010 include Sam Zell, the real estate speculator who bankrupted the Chicago Tribune Corporation, and several private equity chiefs. The private equity and hedge fund millionaires who put their money into Stand for Children include John Canning and Paul Finnegan (Madison Dearborn Partners), Kenneth Brody (DRW trading group), Kenneth Griffin (Citadel Group), and Matthew Hulsizer (PEAK6 Investments).

I have the entire list at the original posting on Norms Notes.

----------
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

HorseBlack Riding

As told to Ed Notes by Jaime Estades, NYC public school parent:
[edited for ed notes]

Roman Emperor and feared tyrant Caligula made his horse Incitatus a Roman citizen and a member of the Senate, thus showing his utter contempt for any shred left of democratic institutions in Rome. The members of the Senate were so fearful, they accepted Incitatus and treated him as a legitimate member of the Senate.

Two thousand years later, New York City Emperor Michael Bloomberg made Cathie Black the chancellor of the largest school system in the nation, thus showing his utter contempt for the institution of public education.The members of the educational corps were so fearful they treated Black as a legitimate choice for the role, not heeding the warning: do not do as the Romans do!

HorseBlack Riding- thanks to David Bellel for photoshopping

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Rhee the Reformer: A Cautionary Tale

A brilliant piece of work from Sabrina at Failing Schools as Dr. Seuss does in Michelle Rhee.

by Sabrina

A ton of smart people have already written a lot of smart critiques of “Erase to the Top”– otherwise known as the unfolding story about testing “irregularities” in the DC Public Schools under then-chancellor Michelle Rhee. (RheeFirst has a collection of all the coverage here.) So I won’t do a whole big prose-y deal today– it’s been done. However, as far as I can tell, I am the first to tell this story in the style of Dr. Seuss. Enjoy

Direct you tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAc6bcMetDM&feature=player_embedded




See:
Erasuregate at Rhee First

Perdido Street School

Calling On The FBI To Investigate The DC Testing Scandal

--------
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Preview of Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman - Still Not Finalized Yet

Friday: 7:30 WFS followed by panel discussion
Saturday: 4:30 WFS, 7:30 -ITBWFS followed by panels
Sunday: 5:30 - ITBWFS

Our film is being previewed along with Waiting for Superman at the Maysles Cinema in Harlem tomorrow (Saturday) and Sunday. Tonight at 7:30 they are showing WFS but GEM members will be on the panel, as we will tomorrow and Sunday. I'll be there tonight and Saturday. This is not the final version - I'm actually still interviewing charter school parents today and tomorrow for a final section of the film, which is about an hour long. Lots of exciting reactions - maybe even Diane Ravitch at the premiere if we can work dates out. Requests for our film are coming in from around the nation, a sign that all the hype around WFS has backfired.

I have always felt the film would reach the already committed and not do much for fence sitters, a goal being to activate people who are outraged at the attacks on public education. So this comment is very important to me since the commenter has a close relative who is a TFA alum and was a former charter school teacher and is now in a policy position in an urban environment ravaged by charters. She was also involved and still is in advertising and media.

Hi Norm:
Just finished viewing your film that answers "waiting for superman"...and I think your 'oeuvre' is just SUPER. AND DESERVES TO BE VIEWED ON N.Y. 1, MNN (for sure), maybe channel 21,....other public access channels throughout country......and wherever else you can place it. Sure there are some fuzzy images and too fast "pans"...but the editing is terrific. I wish you luck and success with it. The message must be heard. I am convinced.

Those fuzzies and fast pans are the result of my amateur attempts at cinematography, but considering this was literally a no budget film using the lowest level of equipment and edited in imovie by working teachers in their spare time, it is quite an achievement.

Bad Week for KIPP Charter Chain as Press Increasingly Takes Aim

KIPP has been a darling of the ed deformers. And oh, so many family connections to Teach for America. This has not been a good week for KIPPers. We have come charts in our film showing the attrition rate at KIPP schools and how their so-called levels go up as the poorest performing students are weeded out. Some of the numbers are shocking. But more shocking is how they have been able to get away with it for so long. My theory? As time goes by charters will fail in higher numbers even with all the creaming going on.


Some comments from the NYCED listserve:

Leonie Haimson:You can leave comments at the WaPost; Caroline Grannan of PAA was the first person I know of to note high attrition levels at KIPP schools. Even if it’s true re Whitehurst’s comments below re the mathematica study, showing comparable attrition levels at matched public schools, this  ignores the fact that the low-achieving students at public schools go back into the pub. School system; while the struggling students at KIPP leave KIPP altogether; considerably enhancing their test scores.

Caroline Grannan: The supposedly "comparable" attrition is NOT comparable. Mathematica is giving out misleading information, a sin of omission.

Yes, there is high mobility at public schools serving low-income students, but the crucial difference is that public schools replace the students who leave, and KIPP schools don't. (It's not that they necessarily have a policy of not doing so, but the numbers show definitively that they simply don't.)

As the most at-risk, challenged students tend to be low-performing and high-mobility, the students who leave KIPP schools and are not replaced tend to be the lower-performing students. At public schools, students who leave are replaced with similarly high-mobility students.

A study of San Francisco Bay Area KIPP schools by SRI International showed that the schools lost 60% of their students, and that those students were consistently the lowest performers. Thus the KIPP schools wound up with only the highest-performing 40% of their students. (This study was apparently underway while I was doing my research and was released later -- it used data that I didn't have access to, giving the achievement levels of the students who left KIPP schools.)

The information about KIPP attrition also sheds a different light on the supposed "long waiting lists" that KIPP schools have -- as supposedly shown in "Waiting for Superman." If the lower-performing students are streaming out the door, as the data definitively proves, aren't there spots opening up all the time for the supposed eager hordes waiting to get into KIPP schools?

Again, Mathematica is giving out misleading information and needs to be refuted.

Study Finds High Dropout Rates for Black Males in KIPP Schools

Education Week

KIPP charter middle schools enroll a significantly higher proportion of African-American students than the local school districts they draw from, but 40 percent of the black males they enroll leave between grades 6 and 8, says a new nationwide study by researchers at Western Michigan University and Teachers College, Columbia University.

“The dropout rate for African-American males is really shocking,” said Gary J. Miron, a professor of evaluation, measurement, and research at Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo, and the lead researcher for the study. “KIPP is doing a great job of educating students who persist, but not all who come.”

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/03/31/27kipp_ep.h30.html?tkn=TVVFjx6pS%2F3QXxwZpXXoJbMnmNSLeyGYhryE&cmp=clp-edweek

Study Says Charter Network Has Financial Advantages Over Public Schools

New York Times

Most charter schools receive less government money for each student, on average, than traditional public schools.

But the KIPP network, one of the fastest-growing and most academically successful charter groups, has received more taxpayer dollars per student than regular public schools, according to a new study, which also noted that KIPP receives substantial amounts of private philanthropic money.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/education/31kipp.html?ref=education

On Education http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/nyregion/28winerip.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

In Fight for Space, Educator Takes On Charter Chain

By MICHAEL WINERIP

Published: March 27, 2011

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Joel I. Klein, the former schools chancellor, are strong supporters of charter schools. Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Klein have repeatedly told principals at New York City’s traditional public schools that a new age of reform has dawned, that charter schools are the cutting edge and that if these principals want traditional public schools to survive, they must learn to compete in the educational marketplace.

Democracy Prep Streamrolls PS 197: Hats Off to Antoine Bogard for Leading the Resistance- Where was the UFT?

The more I think about the shameful performance of Leo Casey at the Left forum, defining public education in a way to include charter schools, the more it becomes clear what they are leaving school after school like PS 197 out there to hang on their own. Leo claims the union has a strategy. They must have studied the actions of France in WWII. 

Marjorie Stamberg reports:

A few of us went tonight to support Antoine Bogard, chapter leader at PS 197 in Harlem whose school has already been forced to co-locate with Democracy Prep, and now they want to grab even more space. The hearing was flooded with Democracy Prep people, all of whom were given yellow t-shirts, caps, pizza ordered in for them, their yuppie frat boy organizers handing out written scripts to the parents, lining up the students who have no idea how they are being used in the privatization wars!


Where were the UFT district and central office people tonight? They should have been out there to support PS 197 students and teachers.


Hats off to Antoine for standing up for public education in that environment! He made the powerful points as to the dramatic rise in class size from kindergarten on now that their school is being squeezed out by the charter.


--Marjorie

Previous Ed Notes reports on Democracy Prep and PS 197:
Stop Democracy Prep Charter Takeover of PS 197M ...
The Racial School Divide in Harlem: A Public Schoo...
Does internal union democracy help organizing ... 
What Ed Deformers Get Wrong About Going to College 
Treat Public Schools Like Ross Global Charter

Ross Launches Missile and Goes Ballistic

Jan 13, 2011

Wait till the Harlem charter schools not part of the favored Democracy Prep, Harlem Success or KIPP start to get squeezed out of the picture. We may have to push our new allies off the resistance boat with a stick.

 
-------

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Voices of Parents, Teachers and Principals at Feb. 28 District 14 Meeting with Cathie Black

Coming soon: report of Mar. 30 meeting of Black with CEC 14

Must see video highlight:
A principal questions Santiago Taveras:

Do you believe that when the parents (opposing Eva's school) go to the PEP meeting at Brooklyn Tech everything is predetermined or are they going to listen to the parents?
Taveras answer is such obvious bullshit the principal follows up with: You are an educator, right? You sound like an educator. You actually believe when they have these massive meetings this mass of  people opposed to what they are doing, you actually believe the system  are putting these schools in without any care for what the community believes? You actually believe that? I know what you have to say, but you are an educator.
Taveras says he stands on his integrity as an educator and his work over 22 years.  Then he pulls a card by shifting the issue and goes on the attack claiming someone asked him earlier why they couldn't fire kids and says he is highly insulted because he has a special ed kid. What a piece of crap this guy is turning out to be.

The principal is incredulous and doesn't give up. He says he himself has been in the system for 33 years - points to parents and professionals on the CEC - they don't believe it either. (The video ends with me asking him: Don't charter schools fire kids all the time?)

CEC 14 pres. Tessa Wilson

Just a note: this principal is one of the tops in all ways and runs one of the very best middle schools in the city - a school he taught at. I know him for 30 years. If Tweed retaliates there will be a massive reaction.

To better understand the backdrop of my report yesterday about the stealth meeting hastily set up for Cathie Black with CEC 14 (Cathie Black's Stealth Visit Today to District 14 (Williamsburg) With a bit of Skulduggery Thrown In) I have put together a half hour video of extracts from the raucous Feb. 28 meeting in the District. I know it is long but there is some remarkable comments and challenges and lots of anger - a microcosm of a system expressing absolute disgust at the insanity emanating from Tweed. It seems that Eva Moskowitz's entry into the district, which already has a number of charter schools, inundating entire neighborhoods with posters, fliers, doorknob hangers, etc,  has been a trigger point.

You can scroll though it but I urge you to try to watch it all.

Here are some more highlights:

The CEC when it was formed was told it would be given an opportunity to have a dialogue with the chancellor...we are the foot soldiers who walk through our schools...the reason you see such anger is because no one hears those voices. ---- CEC 14 President Tessa Wilson (first minutes of video)

We are for educational options but we are very much for district schools - former school board president Juan Martinez (from 5 minute mark)

Questions from audience: your background demonstrates your total unfamiliarity with public schools-- how do you justify your ability to run the largest public school sysem?

Why are charter schools exempt from the disciplinary code public schools face?

The video of the principal starts at the 28 minute mark and runs 3 minutes.

For those who are not familiar with what CECs are, they are the remnant of the old school boards pre-Bloomberg years but basically toothless. Margianalizing parent voices is a major plank of the ed deformer strategy of privatization.

Use this link directly for better video and if it plays slowly on ed notes.
http://vimeo.com/21717003


Cathie Black and Santiago Taveras at 2/28 CEC District 14 Meeting Face Intense Questioning

Grassroots Education Movement on Vimeo.

------
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Cathie Black's Stealth Visit Today to District 14 (Williamsburg) With a bit of Skulduggery Thrown In

Like - where the hell is the 2PM meeting going to take place?

Reports surfaced yesterday afternoon of Cathie Black's attempt to reach out to the CEC 14 after her disastrous appearance at the Feb. 28th meeting (Cathie Black District 14 Town Hall: No Sex, but Pl...).

Black is supposed to do drop-ins at a bunch of schools, including we are told, the old Eastern District HS Campus on Grand Ave.

I put up only a brief video of the principal with the Teddy Bear telling Black he supports LIFO and that competent principals do have the ability to remove tenured teachers. (Brooklyn Principal Challenges Cathie Black).  (I am processing more video to go up later today.)

Diana Reyna, Feb. 28

Apparently Tweed reached out to local City Councilwoman Diana Reyna and CEC 14 President Tessa Wilson to set up a meeting today at 2PM at the Green School located at the IS 49 campus on Graham Ave. Calls supposedly went out to round up "safe" parents to attend. Meg Barbosa, one of Tweed's CEC managers (very telling title), made the connections.

When I heard that I did a double take since there is a mass meeting to organize teachers in another school in that building scheduled for 4:30 today. I figured I'd just go in early and kill two Black birds with one stone. But, alas twas not to be.

Changing the meeting location
Later in the afternoon a notice went out that the location of the meeting was being changed to Conselyea Prep School, 208 North 5th Street in the more toney West Williamsburg. "The meeting starts at 2PM sharp," was the message from Meg Barbosa, a tone that insulted some community people - we know, Black needs to get in and out and say as little as possible as soon as possible.

The reason was not given but we suspect it is considered a more secure location. Reports surfaced that the Tweedles were so disturbed at a heckler at the Feb. 28 meeting, one of them made a "suggestion" to some local to throw the heckler out.

I was going to be there but I have to wash my hair. However, some press I tipped off might just show up - unless they move the meeting again. Just think: shell game.

Video of the Feb. 28 meeting will be posted in this space later in the afternoon. But for now here are a few stills I culled from the video.

Social Note
Yesterday we completed a pretty much final edit of our film, pending a few more shots I need of charter school parents who have left those schools (we have current parents but they fear retaliation against their kids so we are not using that footage). After we finished, Lisa Donlan and went into the city to attend the going away party for Gotham Schools' Maura Walz who is moving to Atlanta to cover education for NPR as part of an 8 city consortium. There were a bunch of familiar faces there - no Tweedies (I told Maura she's not needed anymore by them) - including lots of press people. It is always nice to mingle socially with the press though you want to make sure not to drink so much you start giving away sources. Elizabeth Green offered free shots at the end of the evening but I wasn't buying that ploy - I figure she was trying to find out what Joel Klein whispered in my ear when he hugged me.

I had a long conversation with the always charming Anna Philips, who I've known since almost her first day on the beat after she had just graduated from Columbia almost 2 years ago. Boy, has she learned a lot. Name any ed issue and she's got a handle on it.

It is funny but last night was the first time I really to know Maura and she's leaving already. A Richmond native, she is all excited over Richmond Commonwealth being in the Final Four and will actually be in Richmond Saturday night to celebrate. She gave me an excuse to have a rooting interest.
As a young woman, she's already lived in so many different cities. What a wealth of experience. One thing all have noticed is how the depth and quality of her reporting expanded as she got to know the beat, one of the toughest for a reporter to cover. I'm looking forward to follow her career.

Gotham has not hired her replacement yet but is interviewing people. I was going to apply but only if they guarantee LIFO. Wait a minute. That means Anna stays and I go if there are layoffs even though she is over 40 years younger than me. You see, you can have your LIFO and youthful enthusiasm in one basket.

Read Maura's farewell:  Goodbye, dear readers. It’s been one heck of a ride.

-----------
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Debunking the Education Deform College Myth

I'm finding that the blogging environment is making me into a much worse writer than when I started out. When I have to do a piece for a print publication I take much more care. Today is the deadline for my column for this Friday's Wave (www.rockawave.com). So I figure I'll do a quickie - just copy and paste a blog item. But when I start reading I find that there's an awful lot of bad writing not fit for print publication - especially since this is a local paper and I will run into people in the gym who might read it and start throwing weights at me. So I start rewriting and one thing leads to another - 3 hours later - I have bits of 3 different posts in an entirely new article. And most verbs actually match the subject.

For publication in the April 1 (already?) edition of The Wave

Debunking the Education Deform College Myth

by Norm Scott

Can we push the idea on kids from the very earliest age that life is a failure if they don't graduate from college?

Shhhhh! Don't tell Sarah Palin that I was palling around with Bill Ayers, the focus of the right wing attacks on Obama for attending some education meetings in the 90's with Ayers, who was a key member of The Weathermen in the 60's. Ayers has become a well-known educator and gave the keynote speech at the NYCORE (NY Collective of Radical Educators) conference last week. Ayers' presentation was both political and pedagogical, focusing on what classrooms and relationships between children and teachers should look like, a far cry from the reality of teaching. But Ayers urged teachers to look for the cracks where they can humanize instruction. Many of the young teachers present say they attempt to practice progressive ed ideas in the cauldron of the testing environment that so dehumanizes schools.

I was involved in a discussion at one of the workshops with a group that included a special ed teacher, two student teachers who are actually doing some teaching, and one community college future teacher. One student teacher talked about her discomfort over being forced to sell kids on going to college as the only way to success considering so many poor kids don't have the means to pay for it or their aptitudes or the interest level seems low. But she didn't want to be accused of the crime of low expectations, where the penalty is death of your career. In the political correct world we live in, educators are afraid to utter the words, "He would be better off working with his hands."

Student loan debt is at $900 billion and it takes a lifetime to pay off that mortgage like loan. Should we be pushing college down people's throats without providing a reasonable path to pay for it? Remember those days when the city university system was free?

Most new jobs being created (73% is a number I've heard) are fairly low paying and will not require a college degree. Walmart and McDonald's are the largest employers in the nation, which means you can hang the name of your college over your cash register as you ask, "Do you want fries with that?" Is that narrow test prep education kids are getting aimed at preparing them to do fairly menial, non-thinking tasks more efficiently? You know longer need to know even basic arithmetic to work a cash register.

Why not open up more vocational opportunities without making it seem like blasphemy? Consider that many white-collar jobs can easily be outsourced while it takes 3 days to get a plumber to come from India.

Paul Krugman, in a March 8, 2011 NY Times piece titled Degrees and Dollars: The hollow promise of good jobs for highly educated workers pointed out that the idea that "modern technology eliminates only menial jobs, that well-educated workers are clear winners [is] actually decades out of date.... since 1990 the U.S. job market has been characterized not by a general rise in the demand for skill, but by 'hollowing out': both high-wage and low-wage employment have grown rapidly, but medium-wage jobs — the kinds of jobs we count on to support a strong middle class — have lagged behind. And the hole in the middle has been getting wider: many of the high-wage occupations that grew rapidly in the 1990s have seen much slower growth recently, even as growth in low-wage employment has accelerated."

The elimination of jobs in the middle goes hand in hand with the assault on public education and the growth of charter schools, which will cull the herd, leaving an underfinanced and under resourced public school system to train kids for the low end jobs.

Krugman makes this case. "Why is this happening? The belief that education is becoming ever more important rests on the plausible-sounding notion that advances in technology increase job opportunities for those who work with information — loosely speaking, that computers help those who work with their minds, while hurting those who work with their hands.... Most of the manual labor still being done in our economy seems to be of the kind that’s hard to automate...."

So are we heading towards Egypt where PhDs are driving cabs? Krugman seems to be pointing us in that direction: "there are things education can’t do. In particular, the notion that putting more kids through college can restore the middle-class society we used to have is wishful thinking. It’s no longer true that having a college degree guarantees that you’ll get a good job, and it’s becoming less true with each passing decade. "

He then offers a solution. "If we want a society of broadly shared prosperity, education isn’t the answer — we’ll have to go about building that society directly. We need to restore the bargaining power that labor has lost over the last 30 years, so that ordinary workers as well as superstars have the power to bargain for good wages. We need to guarantee the essentials, above all health care, to every citizen. What we can’t do is get where we need to go just by giving workers college degrees, which may be no more than tickets to jobs that don’t exist or don’t pay middle-class wages."

Of course it makes sense to have strong unions to counterbalance the overwhelming corporate control of the government. You know those same corporations that cry so hard about high corporate taxes while we see GE pay zero taxes.

A solution or pipe dream? Restore the bargaining power of labor? In this tea party climate we live in? My advice? When you get your PhD, better get your hack license along with it.

Norm blogs at: http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/
----------

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits. Here are some crucial pieces for you to catch up on at Norms Notes:

• Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools- Joan...
• Marc Epstein on Deform End Game
• In Fight for Space, Educator Takes On Charter Chai...
• When test scores soared in D.C., were the gains re...
• Another Teacher E4E Would Want Fired

Cavanagh and Coleman of GEM and NYCoRE, Mayorga of NYCORE and Chicago TU President Karen Lewis at Ford Foundation’s "Examining School Transformations and Closings from the Ground Up"

March 28, 2011

Julie Cavanagh(GEM/CAPE) , Karen Lewis (CTU), Sam Coleman (GEM/NYCORE)

New York

Julie Cavanagh and Sam Coleman of GEM and NYCoRE and Edwin Mayorga of NYCORE participated in the Ford Foundation’s day on Examining School Transformations and Closings from the Ground Up which is part of The Ford Foundation Secondary Education and Racial Justice Collaborative. There were representatives from cities across the country at the event including Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Newark, Boston and of course New York City. Most of the other participants were academics, organizers from community based foundations, and funders.

The theme of the day was sharing experiences of school closings and transformations across the cities and the organizing and fight-back that has grown up around them. As you’d expect, there were many similarities and common threads that ran through the stories from the various cities. During the morning Sam and Edwin presented on the New York story with a parent and youth leader from CEJ and UYC, respectively. In the afternoon, Sam, Edwin and Julie shared the GEM and NYCORE analysis and our on-the-ground experience organizing mostly teachers to fight privatization.

For Sam, Julie and Edwin one highlight of the day was hearing Juan Gonzalez speak about charter schools. Juan exposed how the lack of oversight on all levels of charter organizations will eventually lead to their self-destruction. The other highlight was the appearance of Karen Lewis, the Chicago Teachers Union's president, telling the story of Chicago and its fight against privatization. Karen shared some important innovations in the CTU structure since she’s taken over as president – one, they now have a community advisory board made up of parents and community members who advise the union; two, they established an organizing office to organize their members; and, three, a research division to do the in-depth analysis needed to fight for children and education workers. The union work in Chicago strongly contrasts with a common theme heard from every other participating city regarding the lack of quality union leadership in terms of fighting the destructive forces of the corporate reformers, specifically the devastating and misguided policy of school closings.

This day provided an opportunity for us to connect with potential allies across the country and to learn from many inspiring leaders including Juan, Karen, and Ramon, an 8th grader from Newark who laid down some wisdom about the way we are being used as pawns in "The Man’s" game.

Our thanks to Michelle Fine and Lauren Wells for putting together an inspiring and motivational day that, as one parent advocate said, '...may seem as if we are here preaching to the choir, but it is important to be reminded we are not just singing alone in the shower!'

The Green Dot/UFT 80% Solution - to the Destruction of Public Education - Leo Casey Defends Green Dot Charter at Left Forum

“Randi and I and Mike Mulgrew and I — we don’t agree on everything. … How do you find the 80% we all agree on?”- Green Dot's Steve Barr

Maybe you've been seeing stories in the last few days about UFT/AFT charter school partner Green Dot charter, now to be known as Future is Now Schools. The UFT/Green Dot - or the new name FINS? -or whatever-  is part of some deal to close down 2 Bronx schools and hand them over to Green Dot. There's so much meat in this story, my cholesterol is shooting up just writing about it.

Now you know I am way out there even from some of my colleagues in the movement because I consider the UFT leadership - and I mean the very top, not the rank and file Unity people - collaborators - not labor dupes or just bureaucrats looking to make a buck. I mean full scale ideological collaborators with so much of the ed deform program - and beyond. But they have Leo Casey out there trying to cover this up by giving the union a "leftish" face. Ho, ho, ho.

Before I do any parsing, here is a Gotham item with links to 2 stories:

Under pressure, Steve Barr is leaving Green Dot, the charter school chain he started. (GS, Times)

OK, so if you did your homework you see Randi buddy Barr is being barred from Green Dot and he and the UFT partnership have to change names. Something about financial irregularities. But, hey, Barr is in it for the kids.

Leo Casey on tape defending Green Dot contract

Now if you are up to date on the story, check out this video selection I put up from Leo Casey's panel at the Left Forum - sorry, I'm choking at the very thought of Leo and Left in the same sentence - I started throwing the rope over the lights to hang myself when Leo used the expression, "we on the left" shortly after red-baiting people who oppose UFT policy by comparing their ideology to Leon Trotsky and Rosa Luzemberg. But I have the entire video and will be putting it all up. There's just so much good stuff I don't know where to start.

Emily Giles, a chapter leader from the Bronx whom I've worked with in GEM, made a very strong statement about the UFT support for charter schools (she does agree charter school teachers should be organized) and also raised the UFT role in mayoral control. Leo responds, followed by a comment by  Stanley Aronowitz on mayoral control. Watch the 6 minute segment first before continuing below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uLMBIAl0r4




Had fun? There's lots more to come in future videos - wait till you see how Leo defines public education to fit UFT policy.

Gotham exclusive interview with Green Dot leaders

Now let me get to the Maura Walz (who is leaving to move to Atlanta - we'll miss you Maura) piece at Gotham with some delicious quotes from Barr and partner Gideon Stein, an anti-union guy "won" over by Weingarten and Mulgrew. “Randi and I and Mike Mulgrew and I — we don’t agree on everything. … How do you find the 80% we all agree on?”

What's there to win over when they agree on 80%? What's left to not disagree on? Now, read the following carefully:

[Stein] asked Barr how he could help Green Dot’s mission of re-making schools in partnership with labor. Now Stein is the president of Barr’s national organization, which changed its name today from Green Dot America to Future Is Now Schools. And he’s rejiggered his social calendar. “I’ve now had dinner and drinks with Randi 10 times in the last eight months,” he said, referring to Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.


Future is Now, whose name is a play on President Barack Obama’s charge to “win the future,” aims to spread the principles that have governed Barr’s schools in California and New York around the country. Those principles include a simplified teachers contract that trades higher pay for tenure and sets only class size, the length of the school day and year, salary and benefits. Barr said that he also aims to transform the learning experience through technology.

Stein and Barr want to start by expanding in New York City, where they are working with the United Federation of Teachers and the Department of Education on a plan to take over two struggling Bronx schools starting next year. The plan would test a model that has not yet been tried here: removing the schools’ principals and half their teaching staffs.

You mean the model used at Locke HS in LA where Barr fired 70% of the staff and then got these results, which of course he is given a pass on, as I reported:

Union Role is Mediator, Not Advocate

Mar 09, 2011

The state test results released Tuesday for Locke High School weren't the sort of thing its new operator, Green Dot Public Schools, is accustomed to seeing: Not a single student scored as proficient in geometry, for example, ..

And again in Aug. 2009 based on work done by Leonie:

Diane Ravitch on charters in the LA Times
And another fine piece from last week along similar lines:
http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_12985055?source=rss
And here's the June Graduation section from the Time's "journal"-type series about Green Dot's takeover of Locke HS in LAUSD. Clearly, throughout the series, the writer is spinning for Locke the whole time, but has enough honesty (or carelessness) in this section to let some tellingly truthful details of actual student behavior slip out:

http://www.latimes.com/la-ed-locke25-2009jun25-test,0,2545367.story

Lackluster test results for Mayor Villaraigosa's high-profile schools and Locke High
The two highest-profile school-reform efforts in Los Angeles — the mayor’s schools and the conversion of Locke High into six charter schools — achieved lackluster results in state test scores released this morning.

Oh, you mean that model. Maura continues:

Organizing parents to support his efforts is also central to the expansion, Barr said. For the two turnaround projects in the Bronx, Barr has promised to knock on every door in the communities where he is taking over schools in an effort to build parent support. He’ll lean on a veteran community organizer he and Stein have hired away from the SEIU for the effort, Mike Dolan.

But it’s far from clear that Barr’s attempt to replace the principal and half the staff of two schools won’t provoke an outcry similar to that sparked when the city has closed schools. Questions linger about the sustainability of Barr’s model, which has proven to be expensive in California. And already critics have grumbled that Barr, the city, and the union are proceeding with their negotiations without identifying the schools they are targeting to their staffs and parents.

(In our interview, Barr and Stein indicated that they had a high school in mind but wouldn’t name it.)

Hey, are you surprised that the UFT and Barr are working together to replace 50% of the teachers in these unnamed chools? How much do you want to bet the average teachers salaries are on the high end - closing schools decisions are based on the economics, not education -compare the schools chosen with similar performing schools not being closed - or turned around - or reconstituted - or regurgitated. That grumbler - critics have grumbled - is Ed Notes, by the way. Maura continues:

Working Together

The city’s teachers union, however, says it is committed to working with the organization. The two groups, along with the DOE, are already working to find common ground in an area where the city and the union have been stalled for months — a new evaluation system for the schools’ teachers.

Formal negotiations on the evaluations began just this week, but the Barr and UFT Secretary Michael Mendel said that there has been progress, although a new evaluation plan has not yet been vetted by lawyers to ensure it conforms to state education law.

“There is absolutely a willingness on our part and on Green Dot’s part to do this,” Mendel said.

Barr and Stein described a close friendship that has formed between Barr and UFT President Michael Mulgrew — and also between Stein, Mendel, and Leo Casey, the union’s resident big thinker and vice president.

“We met for breakfast and we ended up almost going to lunch,” Barr said of his first meeting with Mulgrew three months ago. He said that he found Mulgrew to be extremely thoughtful about the future of the teaching profession. The two spoke about how to reconfigure schools for a changing workforce, he said.

“I think a lot of this is just the lost art of trust,” Barr said. “Randi and I and Mike Mulgrew and I — we don’t agree on everything. … How do you find the 80% we all agree on?”

OK - close schools, get rid of teachers and use technology to get rid of more teachers.
Looks like a plan.

After Burn
Leonie had this comment about the technology component of Barr's plan (read - replace teachers with on-line learning).

In the NYT, he says he wants to take over schools in middle class neighborhoods as well as poor ones, and both pieces highlight how Barr intends to focus on “hybrid” learning, which means a combination of online learning mixed in w/ actual teachers --- the newest craze with little research backing to support it.

And San Francisco activist parent Caroline Grannan said:

Luckily not everything Barr touches turns to gold (or his preference, green). He has been viewed as invincible since the New Yorker devoted a lot of space to a puff piece on him, but his efforts to win a foothold in D.C. didn't get far:

http://www.examiner.com/education-in-san-francisco/breaking-news-from-afar-ed-reform-darlings-rhee-barr-turn-on-each-other

And finally, Michael Fiorillo comments:

I'm so happy that Michael Mulgrew has found a pal who can give him (im)moral support while he goes about the hard work of selling out his members by teaming up to privatize schools, gut the contract (the Green Dot/UFT contract has no tenure or seniority provisions) and destroy the professional lives of the teachers who will be displaced at these schools.


And it's also heartwarming that Mulgrew could earn the affection of real estate developer and charter school funder Gideon Stein. Think of the effort involved in getting him to jilt Eva! But it's a leader's job to go the extra mile and make the tough decisions, and what could possibly be more important than keeping the dues machine going while public education is dismantled? Yes, like his mentor Weingarten, Mulgrew is striving to earn those pats on the head from the education privateers.


When Bloomberg wrote an editorial in the NY Times in February, saying that unions were important in helping him manage the workforce, it was the Weingartens, Mulgrews and Caseys of the world he had in mind. With the union functioning as an arm of the DOE's HR department, it's enough to make the people who've defended it ashamed.

What Ed Deformers Get Wrong About Going to College

The Take Away this morning had a discussion about the classic STEM vs Liberal Arts education, a debate that was ignited to some extent by what appeared to be a contrary view of education between Bill Gates (study what will get you a job) and Steve Jobs (liberal arts prepares you for a wide range of options.) Steve Jobs, Bill Gates clash on merit of liberal arts education.

Now of course the ed deformers push the Gates view. Waiting for Superman made it all seem like a life and death matter to get into a charter school so the kids could see the sign that identifies the college their teachers went to. Life is over otherwise. And it's all about "competing in the 21st century", "America has to stay in the race", blah, blah, blah.

You know the drill - college is all about future employment, not the experience, intellectually and socially. As a history major, I had no prep for a job - Brooklyn College has a 2-track history major - one for future teachers and one for the other stuff you can do with a history degree - as one parent of a history major said, dejectedly - "what's he going to do, open a history store?" But I felt I had a great intellectual experience in college that gave me some skills useful in whatever I ended up doing.

Actually, I received a lot of intellectual stimulus at Thomas Jefferson High School in East NY, Brooklyn where I was in a college bound program of a couple of hundred kids and we were given a college level education that totally prepared us to be intellectually ready for college.

Is there any reason we couldn't do that for all kids if we had the resources? If students came out of high school like I did and chose not to go to college they would still have a full rounded education - remember, the ed deformers are pushing college but not offering to pay for it or support the families of poor kids - the dropout rates or 6 year grad rates make the high school grad rates of schools being closed look good - but you don't see them closing colleges for poor grad rates.

I am reminded of the excellent discussion I was involved in at the NYCORE conference on Saturday with a group that included a special ed teacher (about 10 years into the system), two student teachers who are actually doing real teaching, and one community college future teacher.

I wrote:

Another issue raised by one young lady was her discomfort with being forced to sell going to college as the only way to success considering so many poor kids don't have the means to pay for it or their aptitudes or interest level seems low. But she didn't want to be accused of the crime of low expectations, where the penalty is death of your career

We got into a great debate about vocational education that might or might not lead to college. We also talked about the fact that most new jobs being created are fairly low paying that do not require a college degree. Walmart and McDonald's are the largest employers in the nation. Which as someone commented means that you can hang your college up over your cash register when you ask, "Do you want fries with that?" Also consider that many of the white collar jobs can easily be outsourced  - I say be a plumber since that can't be outsourced - it takes 3 days to get a plumber from India.

I have to say that I have done many manual labor tasks around my house - plumbing, electrical, carpentry, even painting. Every single task has been intellectually challenging - real problem solving. I often hire a great guy who can do some amazing work. He is a college grad who prefers to work with his hands. One of the brightest people I've met - his thinking process and analytical powers are amazing and far beyond my capacity.

I hired another guy to build an extension to my house - with me as his assistant. An immigrant from Portugal with a 4th grade education he was one of the highest level thinking people I ever met. We had to do so much calculating and analyzing of problems - we were sort of working catch-as-catch-can- I found the time I spent with him so mind expanding. And he made so much money he was able to stop working as a fairly young man. But I will say, compared to the first guy I mentioned he did not have a wide range of knowledge and I think a guy like him would have starred in any endeavor.

Paul Krugman (and others) have been pointing some of this out as I reported in Ed Notes.

Krugman is finally delving into the ed deform bullshit. In a (March 8) NY Times piece Degrees and Dollars: The hollow promise of good jobs for highly educated workers, Krugman corroborates my "be a plumber" line and lays waste to the central tenet being pushed by Obama and translated into charter schools calling their kids "scholars" and having teachers post the name of the college they graduated from (don't look for CUNY colleges) on their classroom doors. Krugman writes (read it all)

that modern technology eliminates only menial jobs, that well-educated workers are clear winners, may dominate popular discussion, but it’s actually decades out of date.

The fact is that since 1990 or so the U.S. job market has been characterized not by a general rise in the demand for skill, but by “hollowing out”: both high-wage and low-wage employment have grown rapidly, but medium-wage jobs — the kinds of jobs we count on to support a strong middle class — have lagged behind. And the hole in the middle has been getting wider: many of the high-wage occupations that grew rapidly in the 1990s have seen much slower growth recently, even as growth in low-wage employment has accelerated.

Why is this happening? The belief that education is becoming ever more important rests on the plausible-sounding notion that advances in technology increase job opportunities for those who work with information — loosely speaking, that computers help those who work with their minds, while hurting those who work with their hands.... Most of the manual labor still being done in our economy seems to be of the kind that’s hard to automate.

...there are things education can’t do. In particular, the notion that putting more kids through college can restore the middle-class society we used to have is wishful thinking. It’s no longer true that having a college degree guarantees that you’ll get a good job, and it’s becoming less true with each passing decade. 

On the surface, the discussion on NPR was not about going to college or not but about what choice do you make when you get to college. Focus on the Bill Gates naturally narrow view - what will get me a job? or what Steve Jobs said - which also means getting a job but from a different angle. As a MAC (but not Jobs - also an anti-teacher deformer) fan I believe the products produced by Microsoft and Apple reflect some of their respective points of view and even if an ed deformer, if Jobs were throwing billions into the ed fray he might be very unhappy with test prep all the time.

So, here is the 8-minute  audio of the Take Away tape. About 2 minutes in the guest makes some great points - college experience intellectually - only chance in their lives to read and reflect on great literature, history, philosophy- the audio is worth listening to.




After Burn
Some worthwhile Must Reads from Gotham Schools:
This one adds to blowing the lid off Michelle Rhee - first illegal firings of teachers, then her personal history of lies about her teaching record and now an amazing in depth report on manipulation of tests through out and out cheating caused by the intense pressure Rhee put on to get "results."

• Analysis of Washington, D.C., test scores found high erasure rates at a top-scoring school. (USA Today)

Here is another blowout of the UFT's best buddy Steve Barr - I will post more on this later.

• Under pressure, Steve Barr is leaving Green Dot, the charter school chain he started. (GS, Times)