Could This Be Gadfly’s End? Top 12 Articles From 2023 Read By Fewer Than Ever

December 22, 2023 stevenmsinger academic freedom, Accountability, Budget, Censorship, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Data, Education, history, Labor, Learning, McKeesport Area School District, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Philosophy, Pittsburgh, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, privatization, School Choice, School Funding, Schools, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Students, Teach for America, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Technology, Uncategorized 2023, After School Satan Club, Asian-Americans, blog, bloggers, charter schools, Commonwealth Charter Academy, Cyber Charter Schools, education, Education Bloggers Network, end of the year, library, MAP test, Politics, Propel Charter Schools, teacher salary, teachers, woke

Thank you, loyal readers, but this may be the end of Gadfly on the Wall.

Readership has fallen off to such a degree that I’m just not sure it’s worth continuing anymore.

That combined with increasing difficulties in my own life have made me truly question whether I should (or can) go on with it.

Don’t get me wrong. I will truly cherish every moment writing these articles, fighting for what I (still) think needs to happen in public education so that our children can be fairly treated and succeed.

There is so much I think most people don’t know about what happens in our schools and what could be done to make them better for children, families and the people who work there.

But after 9 years of pounding my head against the wall – well, it seems like the wall is winning.

This blog used to be read by at least half a million people each year. But social media – the prime distributor of this material – is not what it was a decade ago. In 2021, I had 222,414 hits. Last year it was 124,984. This year it was 73,121.

And much of those were for articles I’d written in years past. The highest three articles this year were not written in 2023. They were: The MAP Test – Selling Schools Unnecessary Junk at Student Expense ( 2,344) from Aug. 2022, When Good Students Get Bad Standardized Test Scores (1,775) from Oct. 2022, and Lesson Plans Are a Complete Waste of Time (1,544) from Sept. 2021.

Why keep putting out new content? It often feels like I’m saying the same thing over and over anyway – and not really being heard except by the same few people.

So I’m going to pause, take a moment and really think about things.

Heck! I might find out that I simply can’t quit because I’ve got too much to say. Then again, I may only write when something really important comes up that I absolutely have to let loose on.

Or this could be it.

I don’t know.

In any case, thank you so much for nearly 10 years of readership. I assume most people seeing this would have been here for the long haul.

It has been an amazing experience. I’m not sure what comes next, but for now I leave you with some outstanding moments from 2023.

All the best in the future!

-Steven Singer

The Gadfly on the Wall

12) Standardized Tests Hurt Asian-American Students, Too, Though Many Get High Scores

Published: March 27

Views: 243

Description: Asian-Americans – taken as a whole – score better on standardized tests than white Americans. But they are just as much victimized by testing as any other minority. The only difference is their success is held up as an excuse for upholding this deeply inequitable practice. It obscures that all Asians are not the same, certain types do not score as highly yet all are held to unfair expectations.

Fun Fact: This is a rarely explored or reported on aspect of the standardized testing phenomenon. I’m proud to have written on it despite its low readership.

11) Fact Checking Propel Charter Schools – Do They Live Up to Their Own Hype?

Published: Jan. 20

Views: 572

Description: The Propel Charter School network of 13 schools based in Pittsburgh, Pa, has advertisements everywhere proclaiming its virtues. However, this is just advertising. From test scores to safety to class size to teacher qualifications and many other factors, the charter chain comes up short again and again. Compared with authentic public schools in the same neighborhoods where these schools are located, Propel compares rather badly.

Fun Fact: I think this is incredibly important in the western Pennsylvania region. This information should be shared far and wide. It should at very least spark media investigations comparing Propel and authentic public schools so parents could make informed choices about where to send their children. But we never see that because Propel is a frequent advertiser. If the media provided this information – and didn’t just uncritically repeat propaganda – the media conglomerates would lose valuable advertising revenue. I am proud I could provide this public service.

10) Stay Woke, Public School Teachers

Published: March 12

Views: 588

Description: Being “woke” just means being alert to racial prejudice and discrimination – just knowing that these things exist and trying to recognize them when present. The way I see it, that’s well under a teacher’s job description. After all, who else will teach the true history that for more than 400 years in excess of 15 million men, women and children were the victims of the transatlantic slave trade? Who will teach the true history of the fight against human bondage and the struggle for equal rights? Who will teach about women’s fight for suffrage, equal pay, and reproductive freedom? Who will teach about the struggle of the individual to affirm their own gender identity and sexual expression? It’s up to us.

Fun Fact: Republicans are so anti-teacher, they’ve made the acquisition of knowledge part of the culture war and turned teachers into the enemy. This was just my way of pushing back a little.

9) Where Have School Libraries Gone?

Published: Aug. 25

Views: 681

Description: McKeesport Area School District – where I graduated and my daughter still attends classes – closed its high school public library for good. They gave away the books and turned it into a large group instruction room. And this kind of thing is happening all across the country. This is a problem because every book is not available on-line. In fact, the number and variety of books available digitally is much smaller than most public or school libraries typically have in their collections – if you’re not going to pay an additional fee. I can read most of the classics of world literature on the Internet, but anything that isn’t in the public domain is going to require me to pony up some dough. And the same goes for most respected resources.

Fun Fact: This was a truly depressing discovery but even more so was the response. Many people couldn’t grasp why libraries are even necessary today. Libraries used to be something society provided to every citizen just as a matter of course. Now our expectations are so low that we’ve nearly given up on this essential resource.

8) After School Satan Clubs Are Teaching Public School Districts an Important Lesson in Free Speech

Published: May 17

Views: 691

Description: Thousands of districts in the US allow religious organizations and clubs to operate on public school property, especially after classes are over. So The Satanic Temple goes around proposing After-School Satan Clubs at the same districts – and all Hell breaks loose.

Fun Fact: You want to let religion in the school house door, you have to let all of them in. You can’t pick and choose.

7) Congress May Raise Educators’ Minimum Salaries to Combat the Teacher Exodus

Published: Jan. 1

Views: 699

Description: A group of Congressional Democrats have proposed a national minimum salary for teachers. Rep. Frederica Wilson and Rep. Jamaal Bowman, (both former teachers) and six other members of the House have introduced The American Teacher Act establishing a minimum salary of $60,000 for all public school teachers working in the U.S. – the first legislation of its kind. The average starting salary of teachers nationwide was $41,770 in the 2020-21 school year, according to the National Education Association (which supports the bill).

Fun Fact: What a lovely thought! Still waiting on this to be approved. Any day now. Come on, Congress!

6) I am a Charter School Abolitionist, and You Should Be, Too

Published: March 22

Views: 701

Description: Charter schools have been around since 1992. Though it seems like they’re everywhere these days, only 45 states and the District of Columbia allow these schools and even then they enroll just 6% of the students in the country – roughly three million children. The five states that do not have charter school laws are Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Vermont. So after 32 years of trial and error, we’re left with a charter school system that does not get better academic results than authentic public schools (despite being given dramatic advantages in their charter agreements) and in many cases drastically fails by comparison. Not to mention all the fraud, malfeasance and ineptitude you get from removing regulations for any Tom, Dick or Harry who thinks he can open a school. Time to abolish these schools and end this failed experiment.

Fun Fact: This article really angered some folks. There are lots of people who hate the idea of charter schools in general but want to preserve anything that they think might give their own kids an advantage over others. Even if that is rarely the case! However, the gleam of the new has definitely worn off this concept and an increasing number of folks are open to limiting or ending this fiasco.

5) A Private Equity Firm, The Makers of the MAP Test, and an Ed Tech Publisher Join Forces

Published: Jan. 26

Views: 930

Description: A year after being gobbled up by private equity firm Veritas Capital, ed tech company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) is acquiring K-12 assessment giant Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA). Let me put that in perspective – a scandal-ridden investment firm that made billions in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan bought one of standardized testing’s big four and then added the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test to its arsenal. This almost certainly means the cost of state testing is going to increase since the providers of the tests are shrinking.

Fun Fact: This is the kind of story that will creep into our lives before we even realize what is happening. We’ll wonder why our districts and even entire states which rely heavily on the MAP test are buying as much HMH curriculum as possible. That way they can teach directly what is on their standardized tests. Bye, bye, tax dollars that could have been spent to educate kids!

4) Top 4 Things McKeesport Area School Directors Need to do to Extinguish the District Dumpster Fire

Published: Oct. 8

Views: 963

Description: My neighborhood district – McKeesport Area School District (MASD) – is going through tough times. School directors reneged on a teachers contract. Their business manager ran for the hills. And at a board meeting two school directors had their dirty laundry aired during public comments prompting one to call a White Oak Councilperson a homophobic slur. I had four suggestions to right the ship: (1) Pass a Code of Conduct for Board Members and Administrators, (2) Start Streaming Council Meetings Again, (3) Hire a New Reputable Business Manager, and (4) Pass a Teachers Contract with No Tax Increase.

Fun Fact: This article got a lot of notice in the neighborhood and some of my suggestions actually got done. The district hired a new business manager and will begin streaming new meetings. They’re also negotiating with teachers so fingers crossed.

3) Teach for America Promised to Fix the Teacher Exodus Before Anyone Even Noticed There Was One. Now It’s Choking on Its Own Failure

Published: Aug. 7

Views: 1,070

Description: Teach for America (TFA) was supposed to fix the teacher exodus by fast tracking non-education majors into the classroom where they would teach for a few years and then enter the private sector as “experts” to drive public policy. College graduates would take a five-week crash course in education and commit to at least two years in the classroom thereby filling any vacant teaching positions. Not only didn’t it work, it ended up making the situation worse. Now the organization created in 1990 is expecting its lowest enrollment in 15 years. TFA anticipates placing slightly less than 2,000 teachers in schools across the country this fall. I guess watering down what it means to be a teacher is even less popular than actually being an educator.

Fun Fact: People really hate TFA. The organization’s cred has gone down more than anything else in the education field – even more than charter schools. The fact that the emperor has no clothes here is painfully obvious.

2) Come Visit Your Wasted Tax Dollars at Commonwealth Charter Academy’s Waterfront Luxury Office Space

Published: Feb. 4

Views: 1,236

Description: If you go to the Waterfront in Homestead, PA, you’ll find the newest satellite office of Commonwealth Charter Academy (CCA) – the biggest cyber charter school network in the entire state. It’s one of 51 locations statewide. Only 27 states allow CYBER charters like this – schools that teach mostly (or entirely) distance learning through the Internet. Nationwide, Pennsylvania and Ohio have the largest cyber charter enrollment. In 2020-21, the Keystone State enrolled 61,000 students in 14 cyber charters – and roughly 21,000 attend CCA! There’s an authentic public school in this neighborhood, too – Steel Valley School District – right up the hill. It’s not located in nearly as trendy a spot though. Moreover, its four buildings were constructed around the 1970s and are crumbling down in places. But the new cyber charter school building looks like a palace!

Fun Fact: I don’t think most people who go to the Waterfront understand what the CCA location really is. To them it’s just another school, kind of sleek and modern looking. This article was my attempt to tell them. Thankfully it proved relatively popular, though the CCA people absolutely had a conniption. They couldn’t believe someone was criticizing their profitable business venture. This story brought the most trolls of any this year.

1) McKeesport Teachers Without a Contract Because of Bad Business Manager or Bad Faith School Board?

Published: Aug. 16

Views: 1,409

Description: McKeesport Area School District (MASD) botched a new teachers contract. So the question is – does it have a terrible business manager or a regressive school board? School directors and the teachers had agreed to a new contract, but the board tabled it in June after concerns that the western Pennsylvania district didn’t have the money to pay for moderate raises. Then the board skipped the entire month of July without a meeting as if the livelihoods of hundreds of employees don’t count. By the time classes were set to begin in August, the board was no closer to solving the problem. Board members mostly blamed the business manager who eventually quit. The situation still has not been resolved.

Fun Fact: This article hit the neighborhood like a nuclear blast. Everyone seemed to be talking about it. Someone in the neighborhood literally called me a “local legend” for having written it. I’m just glad it focused people’s attentions on the facts of the matter. If anything gets me to blog again, it will be writing more about the local stories that are so important but no one else is talking about.

Gadfly’s Other Year End Round Ups

This wasn’t the first year I’ve done a countdown of the year’s greatest hits. I usually write one counting down my most popular articles and one listing articles that I thought deserved a second look. Here are all my end of the year articles since I began my blog in 2014:

2022:

Gadfly’s Most Outrageous Articles in 2021 That You May Have Missed or Been Too Polite to Share

Gadfly’s Top 10 Articles of 2021 – Shouts in the Dark

2020:

The Most Important Education Articles (By Me) That You Probably Missed in 2020

Outrunning the Pandemic – Racing Through Gadfly’s Top 10 Stories of 2020

2019:

Sixteen Gadfly Articles That Made Betsy DeVos Itch in 2019 

2018:

A Gadfly’s Dozen: Top 13 Education Articles of 2018 (By Me)

2017:

What’s the Buzz? A Crown of Gadflies! Top 10 Articles (by Me) in 2017

Hidden Gadfly – Top 5 Stories (By Me) You May Have Missed in 2017

2016

Worse Than Fake News – Ignored News. Top 5 Education Stories You May Have Missed in 2016

Goodbye, 2016, and Good Riddance – Top 10 Blog Post by Me From a Crappy Year

2015

Gadfly’s Choice – Top 5 Blogs (By Me) You May Have Missed from 2015

Who’s Your Favorite Gadfly? Top 10 Blog Posts (By Me) That Enlightened, Entertained and Enraged in 2015

2014

Off the Beaten Gadfly – the Best Education Blog Pieces You Never Read in 2014

Standardized Tests Lie

November 19, 2023 stevenmsinger Accountability, capitalism, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Data, Education, Journalism, Labor, Learning, Media, Parents, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, privatization, Propaganda, reading, School Funding, Schools, Standardized Testing, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Toxic Testing, Uncategorized badass teachers association, education, high stakes testing, Journalism, lies, media, NAEP, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), Politics, reading, schools, standardized testing, test scores, test-based accountability

Whom do you trust?

So much in life comes down to that simple question.

When two groups disagree, which one do you believe?

If it’s a matter of fact, you can look at the raw information yourself and come to your own conclusions. But often the matter under discussion is so complicated and the field so rarefied that you can’t hope to make a rational decision alone.

So we appeal to the experts.

In education, the experts are basically classroom teachers and standardized testing companies.

Sure there are students who experience all of their own educations. But that experience is by definition subjective and applies only to them. Something similar can be said of parents who experience the process second hand through their children. They can make decisions about the individuals in question but don’t have enough information to fully generalize about the entire system.

Those with the most exposure to the most diverse educational experiences are teachers and testing companies.

On the one side you have teachers who instruct students for at least 180 days a year, giving formal and informal assessments throughout to provide a classroom grade. On the other you have the testing companies that give students a single assessment over a period of hours or days.

And often they come to different conclusions.

Many times children get high classroom grades but low scores on the standardized test.

So let us ask the question that the media never does: which should we believe?

News sources almost always act as if there was no question in the first place. They invariably go with the test as if it were a pure matter of fact. But it isn’t. There are economic reasons for this sleight of hand – not academic ones. After all, the huge media conglomerate that ultimately pays the journalist’s salary often owns the standardized testing company or the publishing house or technology company that provides remediation for that particular assessment.

It’s also more interesting to write about failing test scores than kids doing well in school. An alarmist narrative certainly sells more papers. Would there even be a story if a reporter wrote “Majority of Kids Pass Courses and Graduate Again This Year”?

So we’re bombarded with doomsayer stories about failing schools, failing teachers and failing students.

Education Week ran a story last week titled “U.S. Parents Think Reading Instruction Is Going OK—Until They See National Test Results.”

And another called “Students’ Grades May Not Signal Actual Achievement, Study Cautions.”

It’s too bad the article never explains why we should take standardized test scores over classroom grades.

The first story even centers on a misreading of test scores.

The test in question is the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) . Sometimes called the Nations Report Card, the assessment is given to a random sampling of elementary, middle and high school students in participating countries to compare the education systems of nations.

According to the latest NAEP results, about 2/3 of US students read below “proficient.” And when parents are told this, a new survey finds they lower their opinions of students’ reading abilities.

However, what the article fails to mention is that “proficient” on the NAEP is a misleading benchmark and always has been.

On the NAEP, “proficiency” does not mean students can read at grade level. Being able to do that would actually earn them a “basic” score.

If you read the NAEP’s own Website about how to interpret the scores, you’d see that:

“The NAEP Proficient achievement level does not represent grade-level proficiency, but rather competency over challenging subject matter. NAEP achievement levels are to be used on a trial basis and should be interpreted and used with caution.”

So why are journalists continually spreading false claims about the tests that the test makers, themselves, dispute? And why have they been doing so for decades?

Part of the problem is the NAEP has not revised a purposefully misleading grading scale since it was first given in 1969. As much as representatives will dispute the interpretation of scores if pressed, they could do something about it if they cared to do so. They could even put out press releases about how the organizations’ scores are being misread. But that never happens. They remain quiet unless you ask them specifically about the scores and – surprise – education journalists are not very curious about this issue. It would ruin their stories!

Only about 1/3 of US students were below NAEP’s Basic score. In other words 2/3 of US students read at or above grade level – the exact opposite of what journalists are reporting based on their interpretation of the results! However, even the meaning behind that is debatable because each state has a different definition of reading at grade level. A more accurate metric might be reading at age level, but NAEP scores don’t really correlate with it. Good luck getting anyone interested in reading about that.

Then we have the article about student grades not showing actual learning achievement.

The story is about schools in Washington state where students earned increasingly higher classroom grades but lower end-of-the-year standardized tests scores.

Why did the education journalists decide the standardized test scores were accurate and the classroom grades were not?

Good question, but you won’t find the answer in the story. This is taken as an article of faith.

Obviously the standardized tests scores are better. They were given by a corporation. Classroom grades were given by teachers.

This just goes to show the media’s glaring bias against educators and in favor of big business.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average salary of public school teachers in Pennsylvania (my home state) is between $53,000 and $59,000 per year.

Meanwhile, more than $1.7 billion is spent on standardized testing in the US each year, according to a study by the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings. Another $669 million is spent on elementary assessments. Between $34-65 per student per year is spent by the states on standardized testing.

To put that in perspective, perhaps the biggest standardized testing corporation, Pearson, reported revenues of $5.511 billion and profits of $762 million in 2018. That doesn’t include $89 million in additional profit for Pearson from its ownership stake in Penguin Random House Publishers, a major world school textbook publishing company.

Pearson’s main competitor, Educational Testing Services (ETS), reported revenues of $2.1 billion for the same time period. And the College Board, maker of the SAT test, reported another $1.068 billion in revenue in 2017.

Standardized testing companies want people to believe there is a crisis in our public schools and that children are not learning well unless they are held accountable by the same standardized tests these companies make and manufacture. These companies make the tests, grade the tests and then sell school remediation materials when kids don’t pass.

There are certainly real problems with our educational system.

For instance, the U.S. is one of the only countries in the world – if not probably the ONLY country – that funds schools based largely on local taxes. Other developed nations either equalize funding or provide extra money for kids in need. In the Netherlands, for example, national funding is provided to all schools based on the number of pupils enrolled. But for every guilder allocated to a middle-class Dutch child, 1.25 guilders are allocated for a lower-class child and 1.9 guilders for a minority child – exactly the opposite of the situation in the U.S.

If we want to compare the US to other countries, this is a perfect place to start.

But a focus on test scores obscures the differences.

Virtually all of the top scoring countries taking the NAEP exam have much less child poverty than the U.S. If they had the same percentage of poor students that we do, their scores would be lower than ours. Likewise, if we had the same percentage of poor students that they do, our scores would go through the roof! We would have the best scores in the world!

NAEP scores just mirror back to us our child poverty rate – that more than 1/3 of our students live below the poverty line and more than half of public school students qualify for free or reduced lunches.

But this myopic focus on standardized tests also blinds us to the ways our system is superior to that of many other countries.

We do something that many international systems do not. We educate everyone! Foreign systems often weed children out by high school. They don’t let every child get 13 years of grade school (counting kindergarten). They only school their highest achievers.

So when we compare ourselves to these countries, we’re comparing ALL of our students to only SOME of theirs – their best academic pupils, to be exact. Yet we still hold our own given these handicaps!

This suggests that the majority of problems with our public schools are monetary. Pure and simple.

A 2018 review by Northwestern University found that in 12 out of 13 studies increased spending had a positive effect on student outcomes. And that result has been verified by studies since then in California, Texas, Wisconsin and other states.

Money makes a difference.

Money spent on students – not more testing.

The bottom line is that standardized tests are not accurate assessments of student learning. They are corporate propaganda.

Standardized tests lie, and the corporate friendly education media feed us those same lies as if they were fact.

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School Directors Shouldn’t Double Down on PA’s Keystone Exam Circus

November 11, 2023 stevenmsinger academic freedom, Accountability, Budget, capitalism, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Data, Education, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Harrisburg, history, Keystone Exams, Learning, Local Control, McKeesport Area School District, NCLB, No Child Left Behind, Parents, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Schools, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Politics, portfolio-based assessments, Prejudice, School Funding, Schools, Standardized Testing, Student Mobility, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Uncategorized annual testing, economics, education, Greed, Keystone Exams, Pennsylvania, Politics, standardization, standardized testing, Students, teachers, Test Prep, test-based accountability, testing

Ladies and Gentlemen, children of all ages, welcome to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Keystone Exam Circus!

Here you will see children of 14 to 18-years-old perform death defying stunts just in order to graduate!

They’ll jump through the flaming hoop of the Algebra I Exam!

They’ll hop through the spiked hoop of the Literature Exam!

And they’ll even bound through the nitroglycerine filled hoop of the Biology Exam!

All this just so they can qualify for a diploma they’ve already earned by passing 12 years or more of coursework!

Now isn’t that the greatest show on Earth!!!!!!?

Apparently, some school directors must think so. Because they’ve decided to force all the students in their districts into the center ring.

Because as stupid as the state law is – and it is very, very stupid – it doesn’t require all students to pass these tests to graduate. Kids don’t even have to take the tests if they don’t want.

If they so choose, they may skip one or more of these ridiculous assessments in favor of an alternative.

They can take a different test like the SAT, ACT, etc., achieve an industry-based competency certification, successfully complete a service-learning project, or finish an internship or cooperative education program, among other metrics.

Sure! It’s a glorified fetch quest full of unnecessary complications and anxiety, but it’s better than being forced to pass a cockamamie fill-in-the-bubble corporate boondoggle.

Unfortunately some school board members don’t see it that way.

It’s not that they want to remove this senseless hurdle from students who have already proven they’ve learned the prerequisite skills to graduate. They still want kids to go on a wild goose chase, but they can’t stomach the idea of kids picking their own goose.

To switch back to the metaphor with which I started this piece, they would rather students jump through the standardized testing hoop – the one made by Data Recognition Corp (DRC), the Minnesota corporation that writes the Keystone Exams and has been gorging on $533 million in Commonwealth tax dollars for the last decade. Not the hoop that pays the College Board or one that – God forbid – doesn’t make a huge corporation any richer.

Why?

It’s beyond me.

Maybe they think forcing students down the DRC path will help improve district academics.

Maybe they love fill-in-the-bubble tests.

Or maybe they just hate kids…

I don’t know.

But one thing is certain – the Keystone Exams are a costly mistake the state forces taxpayers to fund and kids to endure unnecessary gatekeeping and narrowed classroom curriculum.

The whole mess started when the federal government reauthorized its education law formerly called No Child Left Behind (NClB). That law required kids to take standardized tests in middle school and once in high school. When Congress changed the name to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), it allowed more flexibility in the high school test. It didn’t just have to be a standardized test. The state could pick from all kinds of options. Pennsylvania chose one of almost everything including new standardized tests – the Keystones!

But the state legislature couldn’t decide whether to make it a graduation requirement until just last year.

Students who graduated in May (2023) were the first required to pass these exams or qualify with an alternate assessment, and the data is still out on its full impact.

A report conducted by The Philadelphia Education Research Consortium estimated that only about one third of city students would meet graduation requirements by passing the Keystone Exams. Specifically, nearly 50 Philadelphia high schools had less than 25% of their students with Keystone proficiency rates sufficient to graduate. The report concluded that some additional percentage of students would graduate with alternate assessments but there was no way to estimate what percentage that would be. Would fewer graduate? The same? More? No one knows yet.

Given this uncertainty, it’s difficult to fathom why school board members would want to require tests that may stand in the way of students’ future success.

This is especially true in districts serving poorer families.

Kids in wealthier districts almost always do better on the Keystone Exams than those in poorer districts, according to a report by State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale and State Sen. Andy Dinniman.

In fact, the report notes that of the 100 state schools with the highest scores, only five were located in impoverished districts —where the average household income is below $50,000.

Why would any district – especially those serving students with lower socioeconomics – feed kids into such a system, especially when they don’t have to play that game?

“The Department of Education itself said they [the Keystone Exams] are not an accurate or adequate indicator of career or academic readiness,” Dinniman said. “…These tests have faced opposition from almost every educational organization that exists.”

He’s right.

A 2019 report conducted by the state Legislative Budget and Finance Committee found that state educators (both principals and classroom teachers) overwhelmingly disapprove of the state’s standardized tests. That includes the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) tests given in grades 3-8 and Keystone Exams given in high school. Educators think these tests are ineffective, expensive and harmful to district curriculum and students.

When it comes to the PSSAs, 76% of teachers and 67% of principals said the tests were bad assessments.

For the Keystone Exams, 60% of teachers and 45% of principals said the tests were ineffective indicators of student achievement.

Both principals and teachers said their curriculum had been narrowed to prepare students for PSSAs and Keystone Exams. Instead of going into more depth on regular classwork or learning new skills, the focus shifts to teaching to the tests.

Taking the tests also eats up valuable class time. Administering the assessments takes between 5.7 to 8 days for each kind of test – the PSSA and the Keystone Exams, according to principals.

In addition, the report details the cost of giving these tests. In fiscal year 2017-2018, the state Department of Education paid $42.17 million for these tests.

This is part of a national trend:

“Standardized tests and test preparation have subsequently become big business and that multibillion dollar business continued to grow since the enactment of NCLB and the subsequent enactment of ESSA. According to the Pew Center on the States, annual state spending on standardized tests increased from $423 million before the NCLB (enacted in 2002) to upwards of $1.1 billion in 2008 (to put this in perspective this reflects a 160 percent increase compared to a 19.22 percent increase in inflation during the same time period). A more recent study by the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brooking put the cost at upwards of $1.7 billion in 2011 related to state spending on standardized tests.”

In just one year (2019) the state paid DRC $17.6 million to administer and score the Keystone Exams, said DePasquale. Between 2015 and 2021, the state spent nearly $100 million on the exams. And if we add in the PSSA, the corporation has collected $533 million from the Commonwealth over the last decade, DePasquale said.

Why are some school board members so dead set on making sure we keep paying them?

Federal law requires some kind of accountability measure before graduation whether it be a standardized test or something else. Why can’t the state simply use classroom grades for this measure? These are the daily assessment of student learning. How does it help students by inserting a corporation to make more money off of taxpayers?

The whole process is a complicated, unnecessary circus with our kids in the role of trained monkeys spinning plates so big business can slurp up more of our money.

I hope school directors will begin to understand this and not give in to the standardized testing spectacle.

It’s time for someone to send the clowns back home.

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The Hidden Bias Against Male Teachers

September 30, 2023 stevenmsinger academic freedom, Accountability, Child Safety, Compassion, Corporate Education "Reform", Data, discipline, Education, Labor, Learning, Philosophy, Politics, Prejudice, school segregation, school violence, Schools, security, small class size, student teacher relationship, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Uncategorized bias, discipline, education, male, Politics, sexism, student discipline, teachers

No one wants to be the disciplinarian.

Not at the expense of being a teacher.

Often you need to do the one so you can do the other. After all, it’s difficult to teach a class that can’t listen or sit or refrain from arguing.

But that’s the role men are often given in the field of public education.

We’re the disciplinarians – especially of male students.

We’re consistently given more students with perceived behavioral issues, with more histories of suspensions, and we’re given less administrative support than female teachers.

It’s not fair at all.

Many of these kids are suffering from poverty, malnutrition and/or trauma. Putting them in a room with a male authority figure cannot solve all of their problems. Yet that’s what happens more often than not.

Male teachers are not seen as teachers first and foremost. We’re the enforcers of school rules. And it’s driving so many of us from the field or discouraging even more from entering it in the first place.

Consider this: teaching is a female dominated field.

According to the National Center for Education statistics, 77% of public school teachers were female and 23 percent were male in 2020–21 – the most recent year for which there is data.

It’s worse at the elementary school level where only about one in ten teachers (11 percent) are male. However, things are not much better at the secondary level where less than 4 out of 10 teachers (36 percent) are male.

And these statistics have remained roughly the same for at least a decade.

It’s not true just in the United States. Around the world men are underrepresented especially in the elementary school education workforce. So much so that a 2017 article in the Economics of Education Review wondered, “Are male teachers headed for extinction? The 50-year decline of male teachers in Australia.”

This has both an academic and social impact on male students who look to male teachers as role models. Without a positive male influence in the classroom, boys tend to see education as distinctly feminine and either out of reach for them or something that they should not even be trying to accomplish. Moreover, male teachers demonstrate ways that men can interact in a nonviolent way especially toward women. Their very presence can promote a new conception of masculinity that is gender equitable and solves problems through reason, agreement and team building.

Not to mention that the idea of male teachers as being primarily disciplinarians has no basis in fact. It is a gender stereotype as much as women being more nurturing and suited to childcare. In the field of education it only sets up expectations that men should be sent more students with behavioral issues and that their natural maleness will somehow bring about a solution.

Such attitudes are harmful to male teachers careers.

After all, too firm a focus on student discipline reduces teachers job satisfaction and the likelihood that educators will stay in the field until retirement.

Student misbehavior is a main source of teacher stress and burnout. When administrators give them fewer honors courses and/or fill their classes with more difficult students, it create a more hostile work environment for them and thus increases turnover.

Even expectations for male teachers’ own behaviors are different. While female teachers can be expected to have a variety of personas, men are expected to be strict, rule followers who will not let students get away with anything – and any deviation from this expectation can result in negative evaluations and lower administrative reviews.

The result is lower job satisfaction. Male teachers can feel frustrated due to so much of their time having to focus on discipline issues and so little of it being able to focus on actual instruction. This is especially true in districts where principals, deans and others do not properly support classroom disciplinary decisions.

When a classroom teacher sends a student to the office after numerous redirections and finds that the student is sent back almost immediately with only a warning, it can be incredibly demoralizing. As if the classroom teacher is incapable of a warning, himself!? Numerous steps have already been taken to correct the behavior before it was sent to the next step for higher order discipline of which the classroom teacher does not have the authority to conduct. When such support is lacking, the classroom teacher feels helpless and alone.

Then there’s the issue of being effective as a teacher. When there’s little time for anything but discipline, much instruction is lost. So many male teachers feel ineffective and are judged as being ineffective because of circumstances beyond their control. They were not set up for success but blamed for the situation they were given. And this results in higher turnover.

Corinne Moss-Racusin, an associate professor of psychology at Skidmore College and lead researcher, said:

“There’s no evidence that men are biologically incapable of doing this work or that men and women are naturally oriented toward different careers. It’s a detriment to society if we keep slotting people into gendered roles and stay the course on gender-segregated career paths, regardless of whether those jobs are traditionally associated with women or men. That’s a powerful way of reinforcing the traditional gender status quo.”

In closing, I must admit this was a hard article for me to write.

Just broaching the subject feels like whining. Black teachers – especially black male teachers – experience the same problem to an even greater degree. And women teachers experience their own types of bias and sexism. However, none of that erases the unfairness male teachers endure often in silence until they’ve had enough and slink away from a career they once cherished like the sun, itself.

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If You Don’t Want Teachers to be Saviors, Don’t Put Them on a Cross

September 14, 2023 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, absenteeism, Accountability, antisemitism, Budget, capitalism, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", COVID-19, Credibility, Data, Democrat, Journals, Labor, Learning, literature, Philosophy, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, Racism, Republican, School Funding, Schools, small class size, Social Justice Unionism, Special Education, Standardized Testing, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Technology, Uncategorized, Unions Civil Rights, colonizatiion, education, Journals, Politics, public schools, racism, schools, Students, teachers, teaching, The Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill a Mockingbird, white savior

At the end of the school year, I like to show my 8th grade students the movie “Freedom Writers.”

It’s a good culminating film for the class because many of the subjects and texts we read are mentioned by the characters – “The Diary of Anne Frank,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the civil rights movement, journal writing, etc.

It reinforces the relationship between historical narratives and the fight for human rights as well as underlines the importance of raising your own voice.

However, it is also a movie that has come under fire for perpetuating the white savior trope.

The film is based on the true story of Erin Gruwell, a white middle class woman, who taught inner city children to find their own voices by writing about their lives in Freedom Writer journals.

The biggest problem seems to be that in the film the teacher takes on more jobs to afford supplies, spends time putting together field trips, and even ends up losing her marriage so her students’ needs will be met in the classroom.

Is she a white savior transforming, saving and redeeming the lives of her students through her own personal sacrifices?

Is this essentially a feel good story about a white person saving otherwise irredeemable brown skinned children?

Honestly, I don’t think so. I suppose the answer depends on how much the students’ success should be attributed to the sacrifices of their teacher, and how uncomfortable we should be by the fact that she’s white while her students are predominately children of color.

Is there something wrong with these kids? Absolutely not. Stereotypes aside, their problems arise from the circumstances in which they live more than anything else.

But if I’m being truthful, I have to admit these are tough questions, even more so when we’re asking them about real teachers and students. After all, I show the movie to my students because we’re in a somewhat similar relationship. They have many analogous experiences and I try to teach them using some corresponding texts and methods.

And am I not also a white teacher with a class of mostly black and brown children?

How often are people in my own position labelled white saviors? And what part of that label is denigration and what part valid criticism?

On the one hand, there are legitimate challenges born out of this situation.

About eight-in-ten U.S. public school teachers (79%) identified as White (non-Hispanic) during the 2017-18 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Fewer than one-in-ten teachers were Black (7%), Hispanic (9%) or Asian American (2%). So this situation is pretty much the norm – most students of color have white teachers.

This is challenging because study after study shows white teachers bring their biases with them to the classroom. They often have lower expectations for students of color, which greatly affects their students’ motivation and achievement. This may even impact expulsion and discipline rates as well as other facets of students’ academic experiences.

With the constant emphasis on standardized test scores and the testing gap, it is easy to fall into the trap of seeing students of color as less than. After all, children of color in general do not score as well as richer whiter kids. So teachers are encouraged to look at the situation as one in which they can act on their students and MAKE them have higher scores simply by giving the right test prep and forcing their students to do these boring and extrinsic assignments by using increasingly punitive inducements.

However, I do not think it is correct to characterize this as being a white savior. I think it is being a colonizer, and I have seen the same kinds of attitudes and actions from people of various races and ethnicities.

In my own admittedly limited experience, the most test obsessed teachers and administrators I have ever know have been people of color – almost as if they were trying to make a point about their own racial identity by raising test scores of the children in their charge.

The problem is that the testing gap has nothing to do with any deficiency in black and brown students. It comes from biased and unfair questions which are based more on privilege and culture than authentic academic ability.

The problem with being a colonizer is that it enforces a prejudicial status quo. So raising test scores (even if you’re successful) does little to help people of color. It simply justifies making them jump through biased and unfair hoops in the first place with the excuse, “See? They did it. Why can’t you?”

In this way, I agree with, Dr. Christopher Emdin, an associate professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, who advised educators in his book “For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood…and the Rest of Y’all Too”:

“You are there not as a savior, but as a revolutionary.”

Teachers should be openly antiracist – especially white teachers. As difficult as it can be sometimes, we must not allow racism to become a taboo topic – something to be whispered about but never spoken of by name. We need to have the uncomfortable conversations. We need to read texts by people of color and honor every student’s race and culture. We need to prize difference and examine our own reactions to it.

However, as I said I do not think the issue here is saviorism.

That is something completely different though just as harmful.

Regardless of race or ethnicity, teachers are forced to be martyrs .

You can criticize Gruwell’s story because of all she gives up for her students, but that is kind of what teachers are obliged to do if they want to accomplish even a smidgen of their responsibilities.

In fact, it is almost impossible to be a teacher – especially a teacher of predominantly black and brown students – and not be viciously coerced to sacrifice yourself.

For example, more than 90 percent of educators use their own money to buy school supplies for their students, according to a survey from the National Education Association (NEA).

An analysis from My eLearning World showed teachers for the 2022-2023 school year spent an average of $820.14 on classroom supplies.

However, educators cannot deduct even half of that cost from their taxes.

Why do teachers do this? Because schools don’t purchase what kids need. So – especially in impoverished areas – educators are left with the choice of watching students do without or simply meeting that need, themselves.

Almost every aspect of teaching involves some kind of sacrificial trade off like this.

You can have a classroom with bare walls or you can buy and put up your own decorations to make it a welcoming environment for students. You can try to get kids up to your school’s meager library (assuming one even exists with a full-time librarian to keep books in stock) or you can just purchase your own classroom library.

Heck! There are only about 40 minutes or so in most teachers’ day to plan their lessons and grade student work. That’s not nearly enough time. Just to get the bare minimum done, educators have to spend hours and hours extra daily without pay.

Moreover, teachers salaries are not commensurate with other professionals. They are paid 20% less than other college-educated workers with similar experience, and a 2020 survey found that 67% of teachers have or had a second job to make ends meet.

You want more teachers of color to enter the profession? Then stop making privilege a prerequisite to apply!

This is why so many teachers are leaving the profession. They don’t want to be sacrificial offerings anymore.

The entire country is in the midst of a national educator walk out. Teachers are refusing to stay in the classroom due to poor salary, poor working conditions, heavy expectations and lack of tools or respect.
After decades of neglect only made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic, we’re missing almost a million teachers.

Nationwide, we only have about 3.2 million teachers left!

Finding replacements has been difficult. Across the country, an average of one educator is hired for every two jobs available.

And you want to complain that teachers are acting like saviors!?

Fine! Stop giving us two pieces of wood and some nails!

While there is a legitimate caution behind the white savior teacher trope, it is mischaracterized and misused in order to gaslight educators to simply take the abuse and be quiet.

Yes, educators need to stop defending the status quo. We need to examine our biases and embrace racial and cultural differences. We need to actively work to tear down systems of oppression even in our educational system.

But we also need to reform those systems so they don’t require us to self immolate. We need an education system that actually provides enough resources to students so that their teachers don’t need to jump on the pyre to keep them warm.

These are two sides of the same coin. The same system that oppresses children of color by withholding enough compels teachers to become saviors. The one is built upon the other.

Civil rights activists need to do a better job recognizing this and speaking out against it.

As activist Lilla Watson famously said:

“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

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McKeesport Teachers Without a Contract Because of Bad Business Manager or Bad Faith School Board?

August 16, 2023 stevenmsinger Accountability, Allegheny County, Budget, Charter Schools, Corporate Education "Reform", COVID-19, Credibility, Data, Education, Labor, Learning, Local Control, McKeesport Area School District, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, privatization, School Funding, Schools, Students, Taxation, Teachers, Uncategorized, Unions business manager, education, MASD, McKeesport, McKeesport Area School District, Pennsylvania, Politics, schools, teachers

Which is it?

Does McKeesport Area School District (MASD) have a terrible business manager or a regressive school board?

School directors and the teachers had agreed to a new contract, but the board tabled it in June after concerns that the western Pennsylvania district didn’t have the money to pay for moderate raises.

Then the board skipped the entire month of July without a meeting. Which is fine if you don’t have any pressing business left unfinished, but I guess the livelihoods of hundreds of employees don’t count.

Now classes are set to begin on Aug. 21, yet the board is no closer to solving the problem.

At a school directors’ meeting last week, the board mostly blamed Business Manager Scott Domowicz.

“A contract was negotiated with ineptitude, and we cannot afford it,” said board member Matthew Holtzman. “Our business manager did not negotiate well. We don’t have the money to cover this.”

No board members sat on the negotiating committee? You just left it all up to the business manager?

“This board wants to give the teachers the raises, we can’t afford it,” board member Joseph Lopretto said. “Taxpayers will be looking at a 30% raise in their property taxes over five years.”

Where did you get that percentage from exactly? What are the exact figures, the exact cost?

All of which really comes down to the question – how is this possible!?

The pay raises in the proposed contract are not extravagant and the district does not pay as much as nearby districts.

Over five years, the proposed pay increases are: 6.11% in 2023-24, 6.59% in 2024-25, 6.03% in 2025-26, 4.38% in 2026-27, and 3.26% in 2027-28.

“This contract was offered to us. We accepted this contract. It was not the numbers we wanted, but it’s the numbers that were given to us, and that’s what we went with,” said Gerald McGrew president of the McKeesport Area Education Association (MAEA).

“At the end of five years, our highest salary is still not at some of the local district highest salary now. The parents and the kids are the ones being affected mostly by this.”

So how can this happen?

Can a business manager – a person responsible for a district’s finances – negotiate a contract without a full understanding of what the district can and cannot afford!?

Domowicz was hired in late February 2022 at an annual salary of $100,000. He had been the business manager at Spectrum Charter School in Monroeville for about a year. Before that he was Senior Management Consultant for two decades at Great Lakes Management Consulting, a firm offering accounting and tax preparation services to customers and small business owners in Grosse Pointe, Michigan.

Spectrum Charter School is much smaller than MASD. The privatized school employs 11-20 people and has $1 million to $5 million in annual revenue. MASD has roughly 3,000 students and 300 teachers with a proposed budget of $86 million next year.

The previous Business Manager Joan Wehner had more experience in the education field. She was assistant to the business manager at Penn-Trafford School District for 10 years before coming to McKeesport. She left the district to become business manager at Greensburg Salem School District.

However, could Domowicz really be so clueless about MASD finances to negotiate a contract with the teachers that the district could not pay?

He certainly seemed on top of district finances at the board’s May meeting where he discussed the 2023-24 budget.

Domowicz said next year’s total proposed budget is for $86 million with an approximate fund balance of $10.6 million. This is an increase from the $79.8 million budget approved by the board for 2022-23.

Even though this years budget has a fund balance for the future, expenses are rising.

“Contractual labor agreements and additional staffing represents an increase in payroll expenses of 8 percent,” Domowicz said.

“There (have) been a lot of labor market pressures making recruitment and retention difficult without making some market adjustments to what we are offering in starting salaries. And there (has) been a decline in the median income of the families that we support with the district.”

This does not sound like someone ignorant of the issues.

He even noted that charter school costs were one of the leading causes of financial increases. Every child living in the district who goes to a charter school takes away funding that would have gone to fund MASD. The district paid $2 million toward charter school tuition in 2006-07, which has risen to $14 million in 2022-23.

If this continues, Domowicz said he expects the district will need to pay $16 million next year. That’s 17 percent of the new budget going toward charter schools.

If Domowicz’s figures were accurate all along, why is the school board suddenly refusing to approve the contract with the teachers it had originally offered?

In today’s increasingly anti-intellectual and anti-teacher environment, it is no stretch of the imagination to see why.

After decades of neglect only made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic, we’re missing almost a million teachers.

Nationwide, we only have about 3.2 million teachers left!

Finding replacements has been difficult. Across the country, an average of one educator is hired for every two jobs available.

Not only are teachers paid 20% less than other college-educated workers with similar experience, but a 2020 survey found that 67% of teachers have or had a second job to make ends meet.

And now MASD school board is refusing to approve very reasonable raises for educators who have given everything to the district and its children.

This is my school district where my family was educated, where I graduated and where my daughter still attends. I’ve seen so many fine educators give up the ghost and leave the classroom for better opportunities elsewhere.

If MASD school directors don’t do something to solve this problem, we will only lose more talented and experienced teachers. The quality of education will fall further while charter schools gobble up even more of our tax dollars. This means devaluing our properties and paying even higher taxes.

No one wants a tax increase.

The median income in the district is about $34,379, according to Domowicz. The community cannot afford to waste its declining tax revenue.

School directors need to either prove that the business manager they hired is incompetent and replace him – or prioritize educators when writing their budgets. You can’t have an excellent school without excellent teachers. And you can’t have excellent teachers – especially in a time of shortage – without paying them a fair wage.

Even though many school boards don’t have a meeting in July, perhaps MASD directors shouldn’t have done the same without a solution ready in August. That kind of disrespect is just asking for educators to strike – though the MAEA has not threatened to do so.

It is a shame that we are even in this position.

US schools should not have to rely on local tax revenues to fund neighborhood schools. Rich communities can afford to give their children the best of everything and poorer ones like McKeesport have to make do with whatever they can scrape together.

This is not how other modern countries do it. Internationally, schools are more often funded by state or federal governments so that all children get equitable resources. And charter schools do not even exist in many modern nations. However, until our own regressive governments catch up with the rest of the world, it is up to our duly elected representatives at home to get down to work and make sure all our children have the best we can provide.

School directors, no more excuses. Get to work.

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Teach for America Promised to Fix the Teacher Exodus Before Anyone Even Noticed There Was One. Now It’s Choking on Its Own Failure

August 7, 2023August 7, 2023 stevenmsinger academic freedom, Accountability, Betsy DeVos, capitalism, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", COVID-19, Credibility, Data, Democrat, Education, Labor, Learning, NEA, Pennsylvania, Politics, privatization, Republican, School Choice, school vouchers, Schools, Standardized Testing, student teacher relationship, Students, Teach for America, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Uncategorized, union busting, Unions education, Politics, schools, Teach for America, teacher exodus, teacher shortage, teachers, TFA

Teach for America (TFA) was a solution to a problem it helped create.

Educators have been leaving the profession for decades due to poor salary, poor working conditions, heavy expectations and lack of tools or respect.

So Wendy Kopp, when in Princeton, created a program to fast track non-education majors into the classroom where they would teach for a few years and then enter the private sector as “experts” to drive public policy.

These college graduates would take a five week crash course in education and commit to at least two years in the classroom thereby filling any vacant teaching positions.

Surprise! It didn’t work.

In fact, it made things worse. Apparently deprofessionalizing education isn’t an incentive to dive into the field.

That isn’t to say everyone who went through the program became a bad teacher. But the few good and committed educators that did come through the program could have done so even more successfully by graduating with a degree in education.

Now the organization created in 1990 is expecting its lowest enrollment in 15 years. TFA anticipates placing slightly less than 2,000 teachers in schools across the country this fall. That’s two-thirds of the number of first-year teachers TFA placed in schools in fall 2019, and just one-third of the number it sent into the field at its height in 2013.

Apparently fewer people than ever don’t want to train for four to five years to become lifelong teachers – and neither do they want to be lightly trained for a few years as TFA recruits, either – even if that means they can pass themselves off as education experts afterwards and get high paying policy positions at think tanks and government.

On the one hand, this is good news.

Watering down what it means to be a teacher is even less popular than actually being an educator.

On the other hand, we have a major crisis that few people are prepared to handle.

The US is losing teachers at an alarming rate.

After decades of neglect only made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic, we’re missing almost a million teachers.

Nationwide, we only have about 3.2 million teachers left!

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 567,000 fewer educators in our public schools today than there were before the pandemic. And that’s on top of already losing 250,000 school employees during the recession of 2008-09 most of whom were never replaced. All while enrollment increased by 800,000 students.

Meanwhile, finding replacements has been difficult. Across the country, an average of one educator is hired for every two jobs available.

Not only are teachers paid 20% less than other college-educated workers with similar experience, but a 2020 survey found that 67% of teachers have or had a second job to make ends meet.

It’s no wonder then that few college students want to enter the profession.

Over the past decade, there’s been a major decline in enrollment in bachelor’s degree programs in education.

Beginning in 2011, enrollment in such programs and new education certifications in Pennsylvania — my home state— started to decline. Today, only about a third as many students are enrolled in teacher prep programs in the Commonwealth as there were 10 years ago. And state records show new certifications are down by two-thirds over that period.

To put that more concretely, a decade ago roughly 20,000 new teachers entered the workforce each year in the Commonwealth, while last year only 6,000 did so, according to the state Department of Education (PDE).

But don’t look to most of the so-called experts to solve the problem. A great deal of them are former TFA recruits!

Through programs like TFA’s Capitol Hill Fellows Program, alumni are placed in full-time, paid staff positions with legislators so they can “gain insights into the legislative process by working in a Congressional office” and work “on projects that impact education and opportunities for youth.”

Why do so many lawmakers hire them? Because they don’t cost anything.

Their salaries are paid in full by TFA through a fund established by Arthur Rock, a California tech billionaire who hands the organization bags of cash to pay these educational aides’ salaries. From 2006 to 2008, alone, Rock – who also sits on TFA’s board – contributed $16.5 million for this purpose.

This isn’t about helping lawmakers understand the issues. It’s about framing the issues to meet the policy initiatives of the elite and wealthy donors.

It’s about selling school privatization, high stakes testing and ed-tech solutions.

As US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) said on a call with Justice Democrats:

“I don’t think people who are taking money from pharmaceutical companies should be drafting health care legislation. I don’t think people who are taking money from oil and gas companies should be drafting our climate legislation.”

I’d like to add the following: people taking money from the testing and school privatization industry shouldn’t be drafting education policy. People who worked as temps in order to give themselves a veneer of credibility should not be treated the same as bona fide experts who dedicate their lives to kids in the classroom.

The whole point of this scam is to serve the needs of the privatization movement.

Investors want to change public education into a cash cow. They want to alter the rules so that corporations running districts as charter or voucher schools can cut services for children and use the extra cash for profits.

And that starts with teachers.

If we allow privatizers to replace well-prepared and trained teachers with lightly trained temps, we can reduce the salaries we pay instructors. We delegitimize the profession. We redefine the job “teacher.” It’s no longer a highly-trained professional. It’s something anyone can do from off the street – thus we can pay poverty wages.

And the savings from cutting salaries can all go into our corporate pockets!

This kind of flim-flam would never be allowed with our present crop of highly trained professionals because many of them belong to labor unions. We have to give them the boot so we can exterminate their unions and thus provide easy pickings for the profiteers.

This helps explain why so many plans to address the teacher exodus are focused almost exclusively on recruiting new hires while completely ignoring the much larger numbers of experienced teachers looking for the exits.

According to the National Education Association (NEA), it is teachers who are quitting that is driving a significant part of the current educator shortage. More teachers quit the job than those who retire, are laid off, are transferred to other locations, go on disability or die. And this has remained true almost every year for the last decade with few exceptions.

To put it another way, you can’t stop a ship from sinking if you don’t plug up the leak first!

But experienced teachers always have been the biggest obstacle to privatizing public schools and expanding standardized testing.

That’s why replacing them with new educators has been one of the highest priorities of corporate education reform.

After all, it’s much harder to try to indoctrinate seasoned educators with propaganda that goes against everything they learned to be true about their students and profession in a lifetime of classroom practice than to encourage those with no practical experience to just drink the Kool-Aid.

So it should come as no surprise that supply side policymakers are using the current teacher exodus as an excuse to remake the profession in their own image.

As Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama (Later Chicago Mayor) said:

“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that [is] it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”

If our policymakers really want to solve the problem, we’d spend at least as much time keeping the experienced teachers we have as trying to get new ones to join their ranks.

Research shows that teacher experience matters.

“The common refrain that teaching experience does not matter after the first few years in the classroom is no longer supported by the preponderance of the research,” Tara Kini and Anne Podolsky write in Does Teaching Experience Increase Teacher Effectiveness?

“We find that teaching experience is, on average, positively associated with student achievement gains throughout a teacher’s career.”

Their analysis is based on 30 studies published over the past 15 years and concludes:

1) Experienced teachers on average are more effective in raising student achievement (both test scores and classroom grades) than less experienced ones.

2) Teachers do better as they gain experience. Researchers have long documented that teachers improve dramatically during their first few years on the job. However, teachers make even further gains in subsequent years.

3) Experienced teachers also reduce student absences, encourage students to read for recreational purposes outside of the classroom, serve as mentors for young teachers and help to create and maintain a strong school community.

The road to keeping experienced teachers isn’t exactly mysterious.

First, there must be an increase in salary. Teacher pay must at least be adequate including the expectation that as educators gain experience, their salaries will rise in line with what college graduates earn in comparable professions. This is not happening now.

In addition, something must be done to improve teachers working conditions. Lack of proper support and supportive administrators is one of the main reasons experienced teachers leave a building or the profession.

And perhaps most obviously, politicians have to stop scapegoating educators for all of society’s problems and even for all of the problems of the school system. Teachers don’t get to make policy. They are rarely even allowed a voice, but they are blamed for everything that happens in and around education.

If we want teachers to work with socially disadvantaged students, they must be provided with the institutional supports needed to be effective and steadily advance their skills.

But this requires making education a priority and not a political football.

To do that, you would need to stop bankrolling organizations like TFA.

However, the billionaires funding school privatization and the standardized testing industry would never allow it.

So unlike our public schools, as fewer and fewer applicants come to TFA, there will always be money to keep it afloat.

Those who are causing the teacher exodus will never be the ones to fix it.

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Will PA Finally Hold Cyber Charter Schools Accountable?

July 10, 2023 stevenmsinger Accountability, Budget, capitalism, Charter Schools, Child Predators, Child Safety, Civil Rights, computers, Corporate Education "Reform", Cyber Charter Schools, Data, Democrat, edtech, Education, Harrisburg, history, Josh Shapiro, Learning, Local Control, Parents, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, privatization, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, Schools, Student Mobility, Students, Taxation, Teachers, Technology, Tom Wolf Cyber Charter Schools, education, House Bill 1422, Josh Shapiro, PA House, PA Senate, Pennsylvania, Politics, Students, teachers

Pennsylvania pays more than $1 billion every year for its 14 cyber charter schools.

And overpays them by more than $450 million each year.

Now – after half a decade of legislative shenanigans – a new bill actually has the possibility of being passed to hold these types of schools accountable.

Last week House Bill 1422 passed by a vote of 122-81, with all Democrats voting for it, joined by 20 Republicans. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro would likely sign the legislation if it comes to his desk.

So now it goes to its biggest hurdle – the Republican-controlled Senate.

The state GOP has held up every cyber charter reform measure since the previous Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf suggested it. However, now that Democrats hold a slim majority in the House, Republicans can no longer stymie it completely.

One of the largest problems centers on the cost of doing business. Cyber charter schools educate students online via computer. So why do local public schools have to pay cyber charters the same money as brick and mortar schools to educate students living in their boundaries? Cyber charters don’t have nearly the brick and mortar – no athletic fields, busing, etc. And the physical structures they do have are much smaller. The result is underfunded public schools and cyber charters bursting with cash.

That means higher public school taxes for you and me while cyber charters spend money like it’s going out of style.

The new measure would stop that by telling public schools exactly how much they must pay cyber charters – $8,000 per student not receiving special education services. Most schools currently spend approximately $10,000.

In addition, cyber charter schools would no longer be given more funding for special education students than authentic public schools. Tuition for special education students would be aligned with the system used for authentic public school districts. These measures, alone, are expected to result in about $456 million in savings.

But that’s not all!

The legislation also seeks additional transparency, eliminating conflicts of interest and requiring cyber charters to comply with the state’s ethics and open records law as authentic public schools are already required to do. It would ban enrollment incentives, restrict advertising and event sponsorships.

Gov. Wolf’s original proposal went even further. He had asked the General Assembly to place a moratorium on new cyber charter schools and cap enrollment in low-performing charter schools until they improve. None of that appears in the current legislation.

The bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Joe Ciresi, D-Montgomery, said the goal was not to close cyber charter programs, but to stop overfunding them. He said:

“We’re looking to put money back into the public schools and also leave the choice that’s there. We should have choice in this state. We’re asking that it’s a fair playing field.”

A lot of the prohibitions in the new legislation seem to have been inspired by real practices by current cyber charter schools like Commonwealth Charter Academy (CCA), the largest school of this type in the state.

For example, CCA spent approximately $19 million on marketing over a two-year period, including a float featuring Jerold the Bookworm for a Thanksgiving Parade.

The proposed law would prohibit all public schools from paying to sponsor public events such as parades and professional sporting events. Moreover, it would require all public schools who advertise to state that the cost of tuition and other costs are covered by taxpayer dollars.

CCA also uses tax dollars to provide $200 for monthly field trips that can be of debatable educational value. They’ve gone to petting zoos, laser tag, bowling and kayaking. A parent of a CCA student even bragged on Facebook about using these funds for Dave and Busters Arcade, a Motley Crue concert, Eagles tickets, and family vacations to Universal Studios and Disney, according to Education Voters of Pa.

The new bill would prohibit cyber charter schools from paying or reimbursing parents/guardians from educational or field trips as well as offering any cash, gifts or other incentives for enrolling or considering enrolling in a cyber charter school.

It would also force these types of schools to be more financially accountable by requiring them to approve an annual budget by June 30th each year, and make the budget available, as well as imposing fund balance limits so they couldn’t horde taxpayer money – all things already required of authentic public schools.

Charter schools – institutions that are publicly financed but often privately run and not subject to the same rules and regulations as authentic public schools – are still controversial despite the first charter school law being passed in 1991 and having spread through at least 45 states. However, only 27 states also allow CYBER charters like this – schools that teach mostly (or entirely) distance learning through the Internet.

Nationwide, Pennsylvania and Ohio have the largest cyber charter enrollment. In 2020-21, the Keystone State enrolled 61,000 students in cyber charters – and roughly 21,000 attend CCA.

A 2022 report by Children First found that of the states with cyber charters, Pennsylvania spends the most but has the “weakest systems to ensure students and taxpayers are getting their money’s worth.” Moreover, of the roughly $1 billion state taxpayers spend on these schools, several reports suggest that the money comes from the poorest districts, where cyber student academic performance is much lower than at neighboring authentic public schools. These are the students most in need of help.

Many provisions in the proposed bill read like such common sense initiatives, it’s chilling that they aren’t already in place.

The bill would require cyber charter schools to verify the residency of enrolling students, report the number of newly enrolled students and how many of those students have been identified as needing special education. Since cyber charter teachers meet with students online, they would need to visibly see and communicate with enrolled students at least once per week to verify the student’s well-being.

There are also many rules about how a cyber charter school can be governed. You could not have a school director from another school district or a trustee from another charter school serving on the board of the cyber charter school. Boards would require a quorum and a majority vote to take action. They would have to comply with the Sunshine Law, Right-to-Know Law, and the Ethics Act. Cyber charter school boards would need to have at least seven non-related members, at least one of whom must be a parent/guardian of an enrolled student.

But let’s not forget the many ways this new law would make cyber charters more transparent. Cyber charter schools could not lease a facility from a foundation or management company – unfortunately a common practice that allows the school to bill the public for a service to itself multiple times. Any conflicts of interest between the cyber charter school and a foundation or management company would need to be disclosed. Cyber charters would not be allowed to have administrators and their family members serving on the board of a charter school foundation that supports the charter school. No charter school trustee could be employed by the cyber charter school, a foundation that supports the school, or a management company that serves the school. The state Department of Education would need to have access to the records and facilities of any foundation and/or management companies associated with the school. Foundations associated with these schools would need to make budgets, tax returns and audits available.

The overwhelming majority of these regulations simply hold cyber charter schools to the same standard we already use for authentic public schools.

However, what often gets left unsaid is how terribly students do academically at cyber charters – something completely left out of this proposed legislation.

Study after study consistently shows that cyber charters are much less effective than traditional public schools – heck! They’re even less effective than brick and mortar charter schools!

A nationwide study by Stanford University found that cyber charters provide 180 days less of math instruction and 72 days less of reading instruction than traditional public schools.

Keep in mind that there are only 180 days in an average school year. So cyber charters provide less math instruction than not going to school at all.

The same study found that 88 percent of cyber charter schools have weaker academic growth than similar brick and mortar schools.

Student-to-teacher ratios average about 30:1 in online charters, compared to 20:1 for brick and mortar charters and 17:1 for traditional public schools.

Researchers concluded that these schools have an “overwhelming negative impact” on students.

And these results were duplicated almost exactly by subsequent studies from Penn State University in 2016 (enrolling a student in a Pennsylvania cyber charter school is equal to “roughly 90 fewer days of learning in reading and nearly 180 fewer days of learning in math”) and the National Education Policy Center in 2017 (cyber charters “performed significantly worse than feeder schools in both reading and math”).

The legislation being considered here does the important work of holding cyber charters financially accountable. However, there still remains the very real question of whether this type of educational institution is viable under normal circumstances.

It will be interesting to see if Republicans find even accountability a prospect worthy of a vote in the state Senate. Lobbyists for charter school networks like K12 Inc. and Connections Education have spent billions of dollars against something like this ever happening.

I guess we’ll soon see who the Commonwealth GOP really listens to – voters or corporate interests.

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Student Projects are Better Than Tests

May 24, 2023 stevenmsinger academic freedom, Accountability, Compassion, Corporate Education "Reform", Data, Education, Journals, Labor, Learning, literature, Local Control, Philosophy, Politics, Prejudice, Schools, Standardized Testing, Student Mobility, student teacher relationship, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Uncategorized A Christmas Carol, assessment, books, education, essays, Performance or portfolio-based assessments, Politics, public schools, reading, Silent to the Bone, student projects, Students, teachers, test scores, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Giver, The Outsiders, To Kill a Mockingbird, Writing

The class was silent.

Students were hunched over their desks writing on paper, looking in books, consulting planners.

I stood among them ready to help but surprised at the change that had overcome them.

Maybe 10 minutes before I had heard groans, complaints and the kind of whining you only get from students at the end of the year.

“Do we have to keep doing work!?”

“Can’t we just watch a movie!?”

“Ms. X- isn’t doing anything with her students!”

And then I dropped the bomb on them.

We had less than 3 weeks left in the school year. We had just finished our last text. In 8th grade that was “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee. In 7th grade it was “Silent to the Bone” by E.L. Konigsburg.

Now was the time for the infamous final project.

Some kids asked me about it at the beginning of the year having heard about it from a brother or sister who had already graduated from my class.

“Mr. Singer,” they’d say, “Is it true you give a 1,000 point project at the end of the year?”

I’d laugh and ask who told them that, or if that sounded credible.

“Do you really think I’d give a 1,000 point project!?” I’d say in my most incredulous voice, and they’d usually laugh along with me.

But some of them still believed it.

That was nearly 9 months ago. Yet it all came flooding back when I passed out the assignment sheet.

In the world of education there are few truths more self-evident than this.

Projects are better than tests.

Just think about it for a minute.

On the one hand you have a project – an extended group of related assignments demonstrating learning and culminating in a product of some sort – a paper, a poster, a movie, a presentation or some mix of these.

On the other hand you have a test – a quick snapshot of skills taken out of context.

Which do you think is the better assessment?

Imagine a musician.

You could have her answers questions about notation, rhythm and theory…. Or you could just have her play music.

Which would best demonstrate that she can play?

It’s the same with other subjects.

Take a test on reading – or actually read.

Take a test on writing – or actually write.

Take a test on math – or actually….

You get the picture.

And so did my students.

I place a huge emphasis on writing in my English Language Arts classes. In 8th grade, my students have already written at least a dozen single paragraph and two multi-paragraph essays. So they’re pretty familiar with the format. I try to get them to internalize it so that it’s almost second nature.

So when the final project comes along, it’s really a culmination of everything we’ve done.

In Harper Lee’s book, there is the symbol of the mockingbird:

“Your father’s right,” she said. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

We already discussed how several characters in the book could count as mockingbirds – Tom Robinson, Atticus Finch, Boo Radley, etc.

So I have students write about mockingbirds in all of the texts we’ve read this year. That includes “The Outsiders” by S. E. Hinton, “The Diary of Anne Frank” and several short stories.

In 7th grade, we’re at a slightly different place.

At the end of the year, students have written nearly as many single paragraph essays but no multi-paragraph ones yet. I use the final project to introduce them to the concept and explain how it’s the culmination of what we’ve done before.

Students write about characters that they like from all the stories we’ve read throughout the year. These would be characters from texts as diverse as the one by Konigsburg, “The Giver” by Lois Lowery, “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens and several short stories.

As projects go, it’s kind of narrow.

In the past, I’ve had students make movies together interviewing various characters from their texts. I’ve had them design posters extolling various aspects of the Civil Rights movement. I’ve had them design graphics explaining the difference between internal and external conflict.

But this is the end of the year – time to keep it simple.

There’s actually a lot of research supporting this kind of assessment.

Two separate studies were published by Lucas Education Research with Michigan State University (MSU), the University of Southern California (USC), and the University of Michigan. Researchers took either high school students or third graders and put them through a Project Based Learning (PBL) curriculum.

The high school experiment conducted by MSU and USC involved 6,000 students in science and humanities from 114 schools about half of which were from low-income households. Students who were taught Advanced Placement (AP) U.S. Government and Politics and AP Environmental Science with a PBL approach outperformed their peers on AP exams by 8 percentage points in the first year and were more likely to earn a passing score of 3 or above, giving them a chance to receive college credit. In the second year, the gap widened to 10 percentage points. One key finding of the study, which included large urban school districts, was that the higher scores were seen among both students of color and those from lower-income households.

The experiment with third-graders produced similar results. Students from a variety of backgrounds in PBL classrooms scored 8 percentage points higher than peers on a state science test. These results held regardless of a student’s reading level.

In some ways, this should be obvious.

When you put assessment in context it is more accurate. When you divorce it from its academic context (as you do with tests) it’s more abstract and less accurate.

The problem is one of time and ease of execution.

Put simply – tests are easy to give and grade. Projects are difficult.

Even designing a good project can take lots of trial and error. Tests are often prepackaged and easy to design – you just have questions clustered around whatever skills you were hoping students would learn.

It is very difficult for teachers to design entire courses with projects at every step of the way. Some might say it isn’t even desirable since such a course would probably not be able to cover as much material as traditional curriculum and it is generally preferable to use different modes of assessment in a single course. Let’s not forget that some students excel at tests and would suffer academically if the only kind of assessments were project based.

My personal philosophy is one of moderation. Use projects when you can and when appropriate – but not always. And if you’re going to test, a teacher created assessment is orders of magnitude more valuable than a standardized one.

And in terms of projects, the best is at the end. What better way to demonstrate the cumulative learning of a course than through a cumulative project?

My students seem to agree.

After the initial anxiety of such a hefty project, my kids in both grades settle down pretty quickly and get to work. I think they find the project comfortable because they’ve been exposed to almost every part of it before. This just brings it all together under one project.

It’s the opposite of learned helplessness. Students already know they can do it. All they have to do is step up and get it done.

That’s also why I make the project worth such a huge amount of points.

I already double points for the last grading period. Doing that and having such a hefty final project sends the message to kids that they can’t slack off now. The work they do in the closing days of school will have an outsized impact on their grade. If kids care at all about that – and most still do in middle school – they’ll make the effort.

It also helps fill the last few days and weeks with a focus on process. Nothing has to be memorized. Nothing is beyond anyone’s ability. We’re going to work together – each student and me – to make sure the final project gets done.

Usually they accomplish it with flying colors.

It’s something they often remember and pass on in legend to their younger siblings who bring it up in hushed tones when they enter my classroom for the first time.

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Disaster Capitalists Try Ending the Teacher Exodus by Erasing Experienced Educators

May 11, 2023 stevenmsinger academic freedom, Accountability, Budget, capitalism, Charter Schools, Child Predators, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", COVID-19, Credibility, Data, Democrat, Education, history, Josh Shapiro, Labor, Learning, Local Control, NEA, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Political Correctness, Politics, Poverty, privatization, Propaganda, Racism, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, school vouchers, Schools, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Uncategorized Arne Duncan, Barack Obama, CRSE, disaster capitalism, education, experiance, neoliberal, New America Foundation, New Orleans, new teachers, Politics, rahm emanuel, schools, Teach Plus, teacher exodus, teacher shortage, teachers

“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that [is] it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”
–Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama (Later Chicago Mayor); Nov. 19, 2008

Experienced teachers always have been the biggest obstacle to privatizing public schools and expanding standardized testing.

That’s why replacing them with new educators has been one of the highest priorities of corporate education reform.

So it should come as no surprise that supply side policymakers are using the current teacher exodus as an excuse to remake the profession in their own image.

Schools are facing a shortage of 300,000 teachers and staff, according to the National Education Association (NEA), the country’s largest teachers union.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the number closer to 567,000 fewer educators in America’s public schools today than there were before the pandemic. That’s 0.57 new hires for every open position – completely unsustainable.

This was exacerbated by the Covid pandemic, but the slow march of teachers out of the classroom has been going on for at least a decade. The federal government and most states have been either unwilling or unable to act – until now.

But it’s instructive to see exactly what it is they’re doing.

They haven’t even attempted to turn the tide. Nor have they simply tried to stop losing more educators. Instead they’ve taken steps to recruit new teachers while doing nothing to stop the loss of experienced professionals running for the exits.

In my home state of Pennsylvania, the state Department of Education (PDE) put forward a plan with the help of Teach Plus, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that works to select and train teachers to push its political agenda.

That agenda includes:

1) Embracing the practice of widespread staff firings as a strategy for school improvement.

2) Mandating that test scores be a significant part of teacher evaluation.

3) Advocating against seniority and pushing the false narrative that unions stifle innovation.

Unsurprisingly, Teach Plus has received more than $27 million from the Gates Foundation and substantial donations from the Walton Family Foundation.

And so we see nothing but policies to bring in new blood to the Commonwealth’s teaching force with no help to the veterans already in the field.

The minimum teacher salary in the Commonwealth stands at $18,500 — and has since 1989.

Newly elected Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed a tax credit in his budget of $24.7 million in its first year for police, nurses and teachers.

If approved by the legislature, newly certified members of those three professions would be eligible to receive up to $2,500 off their state income taxes.

However, the credit would be nonrefundable — recipients would save only the amount of tax they would have paid rather than also receiving the unused portion of the credit as a refund.

According to an Associated Press analysis in March, to receive the full $2,500 annual benefit with the state’s 3.07 flat income tax rate, a teacher (nurse or police officer) would have to make almost $82,000 — far above the normal starting wage for those professions.

The proposal, which seems unpopular on both sides of the aisle, doesn’t even do much to increase recruitment. It should have been used to raise the base salary of teachers instead of focusing on just newbies.

But its intent was clear – get more teachers in the door.

We see the same concerns in the state’s new guidelines for antiracist teacher training programs.

PDE is putting forward a new program starting in July called Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education (CRSE) which includes 49 cultural competence standards to encourage teachers to be more aware of racial issues in our schools.

They were created by the previous Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration with help from The New America Foundation. In fact, most of these guidelines come directly from the foundation by use of a creative commons attribution.

This is a left-leaning DC think tank with ties to President Barack Obama’s administration. Why does that matter? Look at who funds the organization – The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bloomberg Family Foundation, JPMorgan Chase Foundation, etc.

These are the architects of the most dominant education policies of the last two decades – high stakes standardized testing, charter schools, etc.

The impetus behind enacting these standards is to help recruit more new teachers of color. It’s a worthy goal considering how few teachers are non-white in the Commonwealth. However, increased salary, prestige and autonomy would go a lot farther than this kind of whitewashing.

After all, if the state, the New America Foundation or the billionaire philanthropists backing them actually wanted to decrease racism, they’d be much more successful attacking racist structures than random interactions – reversing the neoliberal policies (charter schools, high stakes testing, etc.) that they, themselves, promote.

However, new teachers won’t know any of this context. They’ll be perfectly happy trying to change the world, themselves, while many of those responsible for it cheer them on safely hidden behind their performative group of standards.

The excuse constantly given for such an emphasis on recruiting new teachers is that so few graduates are entering the profession.
A decade ago, roughly 20,000 new teachers entered the workforce each year in the Commonwealth, while last year only 6,000 did so, according to the state Department of Education (PDE).

However, recruitment is only part of the picture.

Nationally, our teaching workforce is already more inexperienced than in the past. In 2008, more than one in four of America’s teachers – 28 percent – had less than five years of experience. This is especially true in underprivileged areas where schools often have much higher proportions of novices in the classroom.

According to the NEA, educators quitting is driving a significant part of the current educator shortage. More teachers quit the job than those who retire, are laid off, are transferred to other locations, go on disability or die. And this has remained true almost every year for the last decade with few exceptions.

If our government really wanted to solve the problem, it would spend at least as much time keeping the experienced teachers we have as trying to get new ones to join their ranks.

Research shows that teacher experience matters.

“We find that teaching experience is, on average, positively associated with student achievement gains throughout a teacher’s career.”

Their analysis is based on 30 studies published over the past 15 years and concludes:

1) Experienced teachers on average are more effective in raising student achievement (both test scores and classroom grades) than less experienced ones.

The road to keeping experienced teachers isn’t exactly mysterious.

If we want teachers to work with socially disadvantaged students, they must be provided with the institutional supports needed to be effective and steadily advance their skills.

But this requires making education a priority and not a political football.

As it is now, the same disaster capitalist shenanigans echo over-and-over again in the halls of our country’s education history with disastrous consequences for students.

Perhaps the most obvious example is in New Orleans.

In 2005, the state and federal government didn’t rebuild the city’s public schools following Hurricane Katrina. Instead, they ushered out as many of the local teachers of color as possible so they could create an entirely new system of charter schools without opposition from the grassroots educators who would oppose such a grand experiment on poor and minority children.

The disaster took place under George W. Bush, but Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan certainly approved, even going so far as to say, ”I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina.”

Republicans, Democrats – it doesn’t matter. They both champion nearly the same education policies of standardized testing and school privatization.

Thus it should come as no surprise that our contemporary policy makers are using the current crisis – an ongoing teacher exodus – as an excuse to remodel the education workforce into a more ignorant and malleable one.

When will they ever learn?

When will we ever learn not to trust them?

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gadflyonthewallblog

"To sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth."

Data

Standardized Tests Lie

School Directors Shouldn’t Double Down on PA’s Keystone Exam Circus

The Hidden Bias Against Male Teachers

McKeesport Teachers Without a Contract Because of Bad Business Manager or Bad Faith School Board?

Teach for America Promised to Fix the Teacher Exodus Before Anyone Even Noticed There Was One. Now It’s Choking on Its Own Failure

Will PA Finally Hold Cyber Charter Schools Accountable?

Student Projects are Better Than Tests

12) Standardized Tests Hurt Asian-American Students, Too, Though Many Get High Scores

11) Fact Checking Propel Charter Schools – Do They Live Up to Their Own Hype?

10) Stay Woke, Public School Teachers

9) Where Have School Libraries Gone?

8) After School Satan Clubs Are Teaching Public School Districts an Important Lesson in Free Speech

7) Congress May Raise Educators’ Minimum Salaries to Combat the Teacher Exodus

6) I am a Charter School Abolitionist, and You Should Be, Too

5) A Private Equity Firm, The Makers of the MAP Test, and an Ed Tech Publisher Join Forces

4) Top 4 Things McKeesport Area School Directors Need to do to Extinguish the District Dumpster Fire

3) Teach for America Promised to Fix the Teacher Exodus Before Anyone Even Noticed There Was One. Now It’s Choking on Its Own Failure

2) Come Visit Your Wasted Tax Dollars at Commonwealth Charter Academy’s Waterfront Luxury Office Space

1) McKeesport Teachers Without a Contract Because of Bad Business Manager or Bad Faith School Board?

Gadfly’s Other Year End Round Ups

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