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

January 26, 2023 stevenmsinger academic freedom, Accountability, Budget, capitalism, computers, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, edtech, Education, history, Labor, Learning, Politics, Prejudice, privatization, Republican, School Funding, Schools, Standardized Testing, student teacher relationship, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Technology, Toxic Testing, Uncategorized annual testing, Corporate Education Reform, economics, education, high stakes testing, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, MAP test, Northwest Evaluation Association, NWEA, Politics, Profit, public schools, standardized testing, Students, teachers, teaching to the test, test makers, test scores, test-based accountability, Veritas Capital

Prepare to watch more of your tax dollars spiral down the drain of standardized testing.

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.

“It used to be if you put out a [Request for Proposal] RFP for state assessment, you get five, six, 10 bidders,” said Scott Marion, executive director of the Center for Assessment. “Now you’re lucky to get three. When you’re doing that, there’s maybe not as much expertise and certainly the cost will go up” (emphasis mine).

Under the proposed deal announced in January, the testing company’s assessments and the ed tech company’s test prep materials will become intimately entwined.

NWEA, best known for its MAP assessment, will operate as a division of HMH. And NWEA’s tests will be aligned with HMH’s curriculum.

You can just imagine how this will affect the marketplace.

NWEA serves about 10,000 school districts and HMH estimates it works with more than 50 million students and 4 million educators in 150 countries, according to a press release about the proposed acquisition.

So we can expect districts and even entire states which rely heavily on the MAP test to be encouraged to buy as much HMH curriculum as possible. That way they can teach directly what is on their standardized tests.

That is assuming, of course, the acquisition agreement is approved after a 90-day regulatory review period.

To be honest, I would be surprised if there are any objections.

Such cozy relationships already exist with other education companies. For example, Curriculum Associates provides the aforementioned curriculum for its own i-Ready assessment.

It’s ironic that an industry built on standardization – one size fits all – continues to take steps to create books, software and courses aligned with specific tests. It’s almost like individuating information to specific student’s needs is beneficial or something. Weird!

After all, if these sorts of assessments can be gamed by increased access to materials created by the same corporate entities that create and grade the tests, are we really assessing knowledge? Aren’t we just giving students a score based on how many books and software packages their districts bought from the parent company? Is that really education?

I remember a time when curriculum was determined by classroom teachers – you know, experts in their fields, not experts in the corporate entity’s test du jour.

But I guess no one was getting rich that way…

NWEA used to be focused more on formative assessments – tests that you took several times a year before and sometimes even after the big summative state assessment to determine if you were progressing toward passing the high stakes goal. However, in 2021, the company acquired assessment-related technology from Educational Testing Service (ETS) and took over several state contracts from Questar Assessments. This includes contracts for New York, Georgia, Mississippi, and Missouri.

This made NWEA attractive to HMH which had, itself, consolidated into mostly educational technologies and sold off most of its interests in book publishing and assessments. In fact, various versions of the company from Harcourt to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt used to be considered one of the big 4 standardized testing companies until only a decade ago. With revenues of $1.37 billion in fiscal year 2014, for example, the company held a 44% market share including Common Core instructional resources.

However, in 2018 it divested its Riverside clinical and standardized testing (Riverside) portfolio to Alpine Investors, a private equity firm based in San Francisco, for a purchase price of $140 million, and then sold its publishing assets in 2021 to HarperCollins.

Then in February of 2022, New York-based private-equity firm Veritas Capital acquired HMH at a price of $21 per share, or about $2.8 Billion. And under Veritas, HMH acquired NWEA and the two companies will work together to do many of the things that HMH used to do by itself – like a golden dragon perched atop the standardized testing treasure trove.

All for the benefit of Veritas Capital.

Make no mistake, the investment firm wouldn’t have become involved if it couldn’t make a profit off the situation. That’s what it does – through scandal after scandal.

Founded in 1992 by the late investment banker Robert McKeon (who died by suicide after mounting improprieties came to light), Veritas Capital began its life buying up government contractors and forming close ties with former senior government officials. Of the company’s many defense-related investments, the most infamous was its 2005 purchase of DynCorp International, a shady company involved in the US’s Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Under Veritas ownership, DynCorp benefited from lax oversight, frequently billed the government for work that was never requested, and was embroiled in a sex-trafficking scheme, according to reports.

Veritas also made headlines when a company it bought in 2008, Global Tel-Link, a telecommunications company that provides telephone services for prison systems, racked up exorbitant fees on calls to inmates.

In 2006, the firm acquired MZM Inc., an intelligence contractor, which was investigated for providing bribes to Rep. Duke Cunningham, R-Calif., in exchange for help obtaining Pentagon contracts.

Throughout its history, Veritas has fostered close ties to government officials. Campaign finance records show executives at the investment firm have given over $100,000 to various politicians, mostly Republicans. In 2014, Veritas paid Bill Clinton $250,000 for a speech.

The New York Times reported in 2001 that numerous retired generals were on Veritas’ payroll and the company used such ties to the Pentagon and frequent appearances in the media to boost Veritas-owned military contractors, including DynCorp.

And now the little investment firm that could has its sights on the standardized testing game.

Why?

Because there’s gold in them thar tests!

Taxpayer money, that is.

Current Veritas’ CEO and Managing Partner Ramzi Musallam has taken the firm from $2 billion in investments in 2012 to $36 billion in 2021 doing things just like this.

Musallam focuses on technology companies like HMH that operate in sectors dominated by the US federal government such as standardized testing. After all, the only reason public schools throughout the country have to give these assessments is federal law. It’s a captive market paid for by tax dollars.

We could just let teachers teach and then assess their students in whatever ways seem most accurate and fair. Or we could continue to rely on corporations to do it for us without any real proof that their products are better or even as good as what your local neighborhood educator could provide.

Veritas is banking on the latter.

America spends $6.8 trillion a year on defense, health care and education – markets dominated by the government.

“These are government-influenced markets, no doubt about it, and being close to how the government thinks about those markets enables us to understand how we can best invest,” Musallam said.

So this merger of two of the most influential education companies in the US is great news for investors – and terrible news for taxpayers who will be paying the bill.

For students and teachers – it’s more of the same.

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I’ve also written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

Why is a Gates-Funded, Anti-Union, Charter Advocacy Group Part of Pennsylvania’s New Plan to Stop the Teacher Exodus?

July 18, 2022 stevenmsinger academic freedom, Accountability, Bill Gates, Budget, capitalism, Charter Schools, Child Predators, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Democrat, Education, Harrisburg, history, Labor, Learning, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, privatization, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, school vouchers, Schools, Standardized Testing, Students, Teach for America, teacher autonomy, Teacher Tenure, Teachers, Uncategorized, Unions anti-union, Bill Gates, charter schools, Corporate Education Reform, Laura Boyce, neoliberal, Pennsylvania, Politics, schools, seniority, Teach Plus, teacher exodus, teacher shortage, teachers, union

Teachers are fleeing the profession in droves.

So Pennsylvania has unveiled a new plan to stop the exodus with the help of an organization pushing the same policies that made teaching undesirable in the first place.

The state’s Department of Education (PDE) announced its plan to stop the state’s teacher exodus today.

One of the four people introducing the plan at the Harrisburg press conference was Laura Boyce, Pennsylvania executive director of Teach Plus.

Why is this surprising?

Teach Plus is a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that works to select and train teachers to push its political agenda.

What is that agenda?

Teach Plus has embraced the practice of widespread staff firings as a strategy for school improvement.

Teach Plus mandates that test scores be a significant part of teacher evaluation.

Teach Plus advocates against seniority and claims that unions stifle innovation.

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

How can an organization dedicated to the same ideas that prompted the exodus turn around and stop the evacuation!?

That’s like hiring a pyromaniac as a fire fighter!

“Pennsylvania’s educator shortage is the biggest threat facing not only our educational system but our future prosperity as a commonwealth,” Boyce said at the press conference.

“If schools are engines of educational and economic opportunity, then educators are the conductors who keep the train moving forward. Teach Plus teachers have been sounding the alarm about this crisis and are eager to partner with the Department to enact ambitious and transformational changes to better recruit and retain educators in Pennsylvania.”

However, she’s already getting things wrong.

The importance of education is NOT as the “engine of economic opportunity.” Its importance is to help students become their best selves. It is creating critical thinkers who can navigate our modern world, become well-informed participants in our democratic system and live good lives.

Given the track record of Teach Plus, any well-informed individual should be wary of the how “eager [the organization is] to partner with the Department to enact ambitious and transformational changes.”

But what’s actually in the plan?

A lot of vague generalizations.

The plan (titled The Foundation of Our Economy: Pennsylvania Educator Workforce Strategy, 2022-2025) sets forth five focus areas:

1) Meeting the educator staffing needs of rural, suburban, and urban areas;

2) Building a diverse workforce representative of the students we serve;

3) Operating a rigorous, streamlined, and customer service-oriented certification process;

4) Ensuring high-quality preparation experiences for aspiring educators; and

5) Ensuring educator access to high-quality and relevant professional growth and leadership development opportunities.

As you can see, it is full of corporate education reform buzzwords like ‘rigorous” and “high quality” that neoliberals have used as code for their policies for decades.

There are 50 steps outlined in the report. While many seem important and well-intentioned, they lack any kind of urgency, and though organized under these five areas, still seem kind of scattershot.

For example, the number one most important thing any state has to do to retain current teachers and to attract new teachers is to increase wages.

Teachers make 14 percent less than those from professions that require similar levels of education, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Teacher salary starts low, and grows even more slowly.

More than 16 percent of teachers have a second or third job outside of the school system. They simply can’t survive on the salary.

They can’t buy a home or even rent an apartment in most metropolitan areas. They can’t afford to marry, raise children, or eke out a middle class existence.

Yet increasing teacher salary is only briefly mentioned in step 13 of the first focus group as follows:

“13. Based on the resources that PDE develops on competitive compensation and incentives, advocate for and secure funding from the General Assembly that enables hiring entities to compete more effectively in the regional labor market.”

Talk about anemic language!

Imagine being on a sinking ship and someone only mentioning plugging the leak in such terms – if we can, based on our resources, yada, yada, yada.

Another point that jumped out to me was recruitment of new teachers.

Under focus two, the plan calls for:

“6. Partner with nonprofit organizations working to develop recruitment, training, and mentoring programs for middle and high school students from diverse backgrounds to identify and recruit future educators.”

Getting more people to become teachers sounds great, but why are we partnering with “nonprofit organizations” and which ones in particular do you have in mind?

There are plenty of neoliberal organizations of a similar type to Teach Plus that call themselves “nonprofit” – for example Teach for America.

Are we advocating for teacher temps with a few weeks crash course in education? It sure sounds like it to me.

Moreover, there’s the issue of charter schools. These are schools funded by tax dollars but often run by corporations or other organizations. Many of these consider themselves nonprofit.

So doesn’t this new plan help push more educators into the charter school network? Isn’t it open to funding more charter schools and calling it teacher retention?

Considering that charter schools are not subject to the same regulations as authentic public schools and allow all kinds of fiscal and student abuses, I’m not sure how encouraging such practices will help anyone but the profiteers behind these schools.

Then there’s the emphasis on building a diverse workforce.

In itself, that’s an excellent and necessary goal. However, if you aren’t going to make the profession more attractive, you aren’t going to increase diversity. Right now one of the major reasons our schools are full of mostly white, middle class teachers is because white, middle class people are the only ones who can afford to take the job.

Teaching often requires economic white privilege and often a second member of the household to earn the lion’s share of the income. Without addressing the pure dollars and cents of this issue – something Teach Plus is overjoyed to do when talking about the importance of education – all this talk of diversity is mere tokenism. It’s hiding behind a veneer of “wokeness” with no real intention of doing anything to help people of color as teachers or students.

Finally, let’s talk about the kinds of teacher preparation, professional development and leadership opportunities in this plan.

They are described as:

“high-quality preparation experiences for aspiring educators” and

“access to high-quality and relevant professional growth and leadership development opportunities”

But “high quality” by whose definition?

That’s the point here. Classroom teachers would consider classroom management, effective discipline and time for effective planning to be “high quality.” Educators would value more autonomy and less paperwork. But I’m willing to bet that isn’t what the authors of this plan think it means.

This is what Teach Plus does. It advocates for neoliberal disruptions in school management.

In the past, Teach Plus has insisted older more experienced educators be fired while shielding “promising young teachers” from the brunt of these firings. There is a great deal of evidence that teacher effectiveness, on a wide range of indicators – not just test scores – increases as teachers gain experience. However, new teachers are easier to brainwash into corporate education reform – to be driven by standardized test scores and data instead of the needs of the living, human beings in front of them in the classroom.

So this proposed teacher preparation and professional development is of what kind exactly? I’ll bet it’s mostly reeducation to accept corporate education reform. I’ll bet it’s focused on ways to increase student test scores which will then be used to evaluate teacher effectiveness – a program that has been roundly disproven for decades.

So where does that leave us?

A decades ago roughly 20,000 new teachers entered the workforce each year, while last year only 6,000 did so, according to PDE.

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

Meanwhile lawmakers – especially Republicans – push for bills to monitor teachers, restrict them from teaching an accurate history, and ban books from their libraries and curriculums.

Standardized tests are everywhere the main metric of success or failure, and school funding is determined by them. While authentic public schools serving the poor and middle class starve for funding, the legislature gives an increasing share of our tax dollars to charter and voucher schools without oversight on how that money is spent.

This new plan is not going to change any of that.

It is at best a Band-Aid – at worst a public relations stunt.

If we really wanted to stop the teacher exodus, we wouldn’t partner with one of the architects of the current crisis to do so.

We would roll up our sleeves and take the actions necessary for real change – and chief among these would be an increase in teacher salary, autonomy and prestige.

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Every Teacher Knows

March 17, 2022March 18, 2022 stevenmsinger Accountability, Budget, Charter Schools, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Education, Labor, Learning, Parents, Philosophy, Politics, portfolio-based assessments, Prejudice, principals, School Choice, School Funding, Schools, small class size, Special Education, Standardized Testing, Students, Teach for America, Teachers, Uncategorized, Unions charter schools, Corporate Education Reform, education, Learning, Politics, public schools, schools, standardized testing, Students, teachers

I tried to compile a list of things that every teacher knows. I thought it might be helpful to see what kinds of things all teachers understand but that the general public probably doesn’t grasp.

Here’s my list.

Every teacher knows:

You can’t force students to learn.

You can’t control what students learn or think. You can only encourage them to learn and think.

All students can learn something. Most will not learn everything you’re trying to teach.

Relationships are more important than curriculum.

Race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, identity all matter in the classroom.

Students who feel safe and cared for engage more in the process of schooling than those who don’t.

Home life affects academics – positively and negatively.

Almost all parents want the best for their kids, but most are struggling to achieve it.

The best teacher cannot make up for an absent or abusive parent.

It is important to differentiate instruction but there is only so much differentiation a single person can do effectively.

Special education is vitally important but it is an unfunded mandate that demands teachers and schools provide services without providing the funding or tools to get things done.

Class size is important, and most classes would be better with fewer students.

Education is more of an art than a science.

Learning is not quantifiable. It cannot be measured like a physical quantity.

Standardized tests are poor ways to assess learning. Teacher created tests are better ways to assess learning. Student projects are often the best way to assess learning.

Student test scores are poor ways to assess teachers. The best way is peer observation of teachers in a classroom context with the nonpunitive goal of improving instruction.

Per pupil spending has a positive impact on academic outcomes. And in general the more per pupil spending, the better.

Teachers get no respect.

Politicians are afraid of the power teachers have over the next generation.

Education is a pawn in the culture war. Most things politicians and policymakers say about education are untrue.

Decision makers rarely listen to teachers.

There are very few bad teachers who last beyond 3-5 years in the classroom. There are many bad administrators who spent very little time in the classroom.

Public school teachers with 4-year (or more) degrees are generally better at their jobs than teachers with emergency certifications, Teach for America temps and uncertified charter school teachers.

Teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions.

Teachers absorb student trauma. Whether intentionally or not, students often hurt their teachers – emotionally and/or physically. Teachers sometimes hurt their students.

Teachers’ safety, well-being and health are not valued by most school districts.

Teachers are not paid a fair wage for the work they do, the amount of education required to get the job, and the impact they have on the lives of their students.

Teachers are not able to use the bathroom during most of the school day.

Teachers do not have enough time untethered to students to plan, collaborate and speak to parents effectively.

Most paperwork teachers are required to complete, most meetings teachers are required to attend, and most professional development teachers are required to undergo is meaningless.

Teachers are expected to put their students before their own children and families.

Teachers are expected to take work home every day, and they often feel guilty if they don’t.

Teachers are expected to correct the wrongs of every level of society – and accept all the blame.

Teaching is one of the most important jobs in the world.

Teachers make a difference every day.

Many teachers who love their jobs are considering leaving at the first opportunity.

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I Love Teaching, But…

December 20, 2021 stevenmsinger Accountability, Budget, capitalism, Charter Schools, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Common Core, Compassion, Corporate Education "Reform", COVID-19, Credibility, Education, Gun Control, Guns, history, Labor, Learning, Local Control, Parents, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, privatization, Propaganda, protest, Racism, School Funding, Schools, Standardized Testing, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Uncategorized Corporate Education Reform, COVID-19, education, Politics, public schools, schools, standardized testing, teacher exodus, teacher shortage, teachers, teaching

I love teaching.

I love greeting the kids as they come into class every day. I love listening to their stories, making them laugh, giving advice, and calming their fears. I love accepting assignments, helping with problems, and making connections about things we talked about last week.

I don’t love being perpetually exhausted.

I don’t love struggling to keep my eyes open as I drive home every day. I don’t love shuffling through the door, dropping my bag on the floor and collapsing into bed for a few hours before I can even think about cooking dinner. I don’t love the paralysis every tiny decision gives me after making thousands of choices all day long in class. I don’t love missing giant chunks of my family’s life.

I love teaching.

I love inspiring kids to write. I love coming up with creative and interesting journal topics and poetry assignments. I love explaining the far out concepts – hyperbole, alliteration, onomatopoeia. I love jamming to Blackalicious’ “Alphabet Aerobics,” sharing “Whose Line is it Anyway” videos and trying to write paragraphs to the melodies of Miles Davis.

I don’t love having so little planning time.

I don’t love having to fly by the seat of my pants rehashing lessons that were getting stale two years ago but having no time to make them fresh or original. I don’t love trying to fit in as much grading as I can in class, trying to call or email parents on my lunch break. I don’t love having to fill in for missing staff 4 out of 5 days a week, being a glorified security guard in lunch duty, subbing for a teacher who isn’t absent but who has been called into an unnecessary staff meeting for yet another scattershot initiative to fight bogus learning loss.

I don’t love the impossibly high expectations.

I don’t love being praised for being the most important factor in school for student learning but bullied to ignore the importance of out of school factors. I don’t love being blamed for a child’s poverty or home life or the bias of standardized test questions. I don’t love being held responsible for everything by people who don’t listen to me and are, themselves, responsible for nothing.

I love teaching.

I love reading books with my students – both together and separately. I love going to the library and helping them find something suited to their tastes – try a Ray Bradbury classic; maybe a new anime; and when you’re ready, a deep meditation by Toni Morrison. I love reading “The Outsiders” with my classes and experiencing Ponyboy’s story anew every year – feeling the highs, the lows, the losses, the victories. I love seeing the look on children’s faces when the realization dawns that they can no longer honestly say they hate reading, but only that sometimes it’s hard. I love catching them with a book in their bags or the same book on their desks being read over and over again because they love it so much.

I don’t love the low pay.

I don’t love that starting salary for most teachers is just $10,000 above the most generous minimum wage. I don’t love that becoming a teacher often means going into debt so you can earn a four-year degree in education and serve an (often unpaid) internship in the classroom just to make 14 percent less than those from professions that require similar levels of education. I don’t love that our salaries start low and grow even more slowly. I don’t love that many of us need a second or third job just to make ends meet. I don’t love that teachers get crap for having summers off (unpaid) but average 53 hours a week during the school year – making up for any downtime in June, July and August.

I don’t love the lack of autonomy.

I don’t love having to waste time writing formal lesson plans detailing what I hope to do every minute of every day complete with justifications and references to developmentally inappropriate academic standards written by the testing industry and political hacks. I don’t love being told to differentiate student learning but standardize my assessments. And when things go wrong, I don’t love being forced to enact scripted lessons when everything my students do and ask and feel and care about is unscripted.

I don’t love the gaslighting.

I don’t love having my health concerns about Covid-19 ignored as the school board votes to make our buildings mask optional while their children are quietly quarantined in greater numbers. I don’t love explaining to my administrators or principals about how useless standardized tests are and being told that my opinion is wrong. I don’t love how my educated viewpoints based on decades of classroom experience are always silenced by charter school operators, think tank goons and newly minted principals fresh out of prep schools funded by billionaire philanthropists who make money off the standardized testing industry. I don’t love being called a hero if I put my life on the line to keep children safe during a shooting or emergency but vilified if I ask for reforms to make sure it doesn’t happen (again).

I love teaching.

I love conferencing with students every step of the way as they write essays. I love providing whole group instruction, mini-lessons, and even reteaching it all at individual desks when they didn’t catch it the first time. I love watching students’ abilities grow with each passing day, with each line they write, with each assignment they turn in. I love cheerleading, championing and boosting their confidence until they can see their own powers increase.

I don’t love the disrespect – sometimes in the classroom but often outside of it. I don’t love being told I’m not man enough, not woman enough, too black, too brown, not black enough, not brown enough, not bilingual, not poor enough, too poor, too selfish, too selfless, too anything and everything. I don’t love being blamed for all the evils of society while having none of the power to change anything.

I don’t love being used as a political football. I don’t love being scapegoated for the latest scare tactic jargon used to trick people into thinking public education is a failure when it works better than almost any other social program we have and would work even better than it does if we adequately, equitably and sustainably funded it. I don’t love having my work compared to that of teachers in other countries when our public education system teaches everyone and most others are extremely selective about who gets 12 years of schooling. I don’t love having to explain why complaints about per pupil spending in the US are misleading since they’re talking about averages and we don’t spend the money equally – some kids get riches and many get pennies. I don’t love getting hate mail and risking pink slips for teaching honest history or science while politicians foam at the mouth hurling racist dog whistles like “Critical Race Theory.”

I don’t love getting death threats just for doing my job. I don’t love TikTok challenging students to slap a teacher or encouraging nationwide school bomb threats and shootings. I don’t love going to trainings where the police offer advice on how to fight back if there’s a shooter because at that point it’s survival of the fittest in the middle school. I don’t love being in class and all of a sudden everything goes quiet and you hear a strange noise in the distance and wonder if this is the moment you have to make sure the door is locked and get the kids to take up their positions in the dark.

I love teaching.

I do.

I really love teaching.

But all this other stuff makes it hard to keep coming back and doing this thing I love.

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Standardized Testing During the Pandemic is Corporate Welfare Not Student Equity

February 24, 2021 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Budget, capitalism, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", COVID-19, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, history, Joe Biden, Learning, Obama, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, Racism, Republican, school closings, School Funding, Schools, Standardized Testing, Student Mobility, Students, Teachers, Toxic Testing coronavirus, Corporate Education Reform, corporate school reform, corporate welfare, COVID-19, economics, equity, pandemic, Politics, Profit, reopening schools, school funding, standardized testing, Test Prep, test-based accountability, testocracy

We’ve got to be able to tell how badly the pandemic is affecting student learning.

So let’s give standardized tests.

That’s the rationale behind the Biden administration’s mandate that schools across the country still struggling just to keep buildings open somehow manage to proctor standardized assessments.

Nearly 29 million people have contracted Covid-19 in the United States. More than 514,000 people have died from the virus.

Only about half of the nation’s schools are open for in-person learning, and many of those are operating on a hybrid basis. The rest are completely virtual.

Children have lost parents, siblings, family members, friends, teachers. Families are struggling just to survive with some members still recovering from the longterm health consequences of contracting Covid.

It is absurd to claim that only standardized tests can show whether the pandemic has impacted student learning.

It has. Nearly everywhere.

Insisting on testing is like bringing a thermometer into a burning building to tell firefighters where to spray the hose.

But pay attention to the messenger.

In this case, it’s acting education secretary Ian Rosenblum, former executive director of pro-testing organization, the Education Trust.

He sent the letter to state superintendents on behalf of the Biden administration telling them that blanket waivers of the federal testing mandate would not be considered this year as they were in 2019-20.

Let’s be honest. Rosenblum is not an educator.

He is a corporate lobbyist given a government job where he has continued to lobby for his industry.

This has nothing to do with helping students overcome the problems of a pandemic.

It is corporate welfare. Plain and simple.

Standardized testing is a multi-million dollar business.

States spend more than $1.7 billion every year on testing. In 45 states, assessments at the primary level alone cost taxpayers $669 million.

This money isn’t going to mom and pop organizations. The four major testing companies are Wall Street heavy hitters – Harcourt Educational Measurement, CTB McGraw-Hill, Riverside Publishing (a Houghton Mifflin company), and NCS Pearson.

In 2001 the first three agencies accounted for 96% of the tests administered, while Pearson was the leading scoring agency of those tests. And since then the market has exploded.

In 1955 the industry was valued at only $7 million. By 1997 it had ballooned to $263 million. This is a 3ooo% increase. Today the estimated worth of the industry is $700 million.

However, that only takes into account actual assessment.

When you consider that many of these companies (or their parent conglomerates) also provide remedial materials for students who fail the tests, the profits really start rolling in. It’s no coincidence that McGraw-Hill, for example, also publishes books and other materials many of which are used by schools to remediate the same students who fail the company’s tests.

It’s a captive market. The testing company makes and distributes the test (for a fee), scores the test so that a majority fail (for another fee), and then sells schools the materials it claims will help students pass next time (for an even further fee).

However, for the first time in two decades, the pandemic threw a monkey wrench into the machine.

Last year, the Trump administration cancelled all standardized tests as schools were closed to protect students from Covid-19.

Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos had already signaled that she would not cancel them again this year, but when Trump lost the election, many educators and families had hoped in-coming President Joe Biden would think differently.

He had, in fact, promised that if he were elected he would not continue forcing states to give standardized testing.

I was there at the Education Forum in Pittsburgh in 2020 when my friend Dr. Denisha Jones asked him about it point blank.

You can watch his full answer here, but the crux of it was “Teaching to a standardized test makes no sense.”

Unfortunately, caving to a powerful corporate lobby does. And that’s exactly what Biden has done here.

In fact, it goes a long way to explaining his perplexing rush to reopen schools in his first 100 days regardless of the level of community infection.

Biden, who ran on being friendly to teachers and that his wife Dr. Jill Biden was an educator, has pushed some extremely absurd education policies in his short time in office.

Not only has his administration decided to ignore community infections, he has insisted that schools can be opened safely if districts follow certain safety precautions like universal masking, contact tracing and social distancing.

However, many schools are not following these protocols and even more simply cannot because doing so would be exorbitantly expensive. For example, you can’t have all students return to a cramped school building AND have them be 6 feet apart. There simply isn’t the available space. Moreover, contact tracing doesn’t effectively track Covid cases since most students who contract the virus are asymptomatic.

Then there is the absurd prescription that schools don’t even have to prioritize teachers for the Covid vaccine before reopening. In many states educators aren’t even eligible yet to receive the vaccine. Yet the Biden administration expects them to enter the classroom without necessary protections to keep them, their families and students safe.

These are all perplexing policies until one looks at it from an economic vantage.

Waiting for all teachers to have the opportunity to take a two dose vaccine would take at least a month and a half – that’s if every teacher could start the process today.

In addition, if we wait for community infections of the virus to dissipate, testing season will be far from over. In fact, it’s likely the rest of the school year would be gone.

So if the Biden administration had prioritized safety, it would have been forced to cancel standardized tests again this year.

Instead, it has prioritized the testing-industrial complex.

The economy is more important to the powers that be once again.

As a compromise measure, Biden is allowing flexibility in just about every way the tests are given. They can be shortened. They can be given remotely. They don’t have to be given now – they can be given in the fall.

However, this completely erases any measure of standardization in the processes.

Standardization means conforming to a standard. It means sameness. A test taken by a student at home is not the same as one taken by a student in school. A short version of a test is not the same as a long one. A test taken with 180 days to prepare is not the same as one taken with 250.

And if standardization is not NECESSARY in this case, why can’t we rely on non-standardized assessments teachers are already giving to their students? For example, nearly every teacher gives her students a grade based on the work the child has done. Why isn’t that a good enough measure of student learning?

It’s based on a year’s worth of work, not just a snapshot. It’s in context. And it’s actually more standardized than the hodge podge of assessments the Biden administration is allowing this year.

Why isn’t that allowed?

Because the testing companies won’t make any money.

Moreover, it could ruin their future profits.

If student grades are enough to demonstrate student learning during a pandemic, why aren’t they enough at other times?

The very project of high stakes standardized testing is thrown into question – as it should be.

Educators across the country will tell you how worthless standardized tests are. They’ve been telling people that for decades but policymakers from Republicans to Democrats refuse to listen. It’s almost as if they’re distracted by another sound – the jingle of money perhaps?

Those who claim standardized testing is necessary to determine where students are struggling have the weight of history to overcome.

Standardized assessments were created as a justification of racism and eugenics. They have never shown learning gaps that couldn’t be explained by socio-economics. Impoverished and minority students score poorly on the tests while privileged and white students score well.

If one really wanted to invest more resources where these alleged deficiencies exist, one wouldn’t need standardized assessments. You could just look at the poverty level of the community and the percentage of minority students.

But even more telling is the fact that this has never happened. Testing has never resulted in more resources being provided to needy children other than providing more remedial test prep material purchased from – you guessed it – the testing industry.

Under normal circumstances standardized testing is a scam.

During a pandemic, it’s the most perverse kind of corruption imaginable.

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Kids Are NOT Falling Behind. They Are Surviving a Pandemic

December 19, 2020 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Budget, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Common Core, Compassion, computers, Corporate Education "Reform", COVID-19, Education, Labor, Learning, Parents, Philosophy, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, privatization, Propaganda, school closings, School Funding, Schools, Standardized Testing, Student Mobility, student teacher relationship, Students, Teach for America, Teachers, Technology common core, coronavirus, Corporate Education Reform, corporate school reform, COVID-19, developmental psychology, educators, falling behind, Learning, Politics, professional development, reopening schools, school funding, schools, Teach for America, teachers

Everyone is worried about how the Coronavirus pandemic is affecting children.

And it IS affecting them.

But so much worry is being wasted on the wrong things.

Instead of agonizing about kids being put in danger of infection at in-person schools where the virus is out of control, we’re told to worry about academic regression.

Instead of feeling anxiety about abandoning kids at home as outbreaks close their schools and parents still have to go in to work, we’re told to agonize over failing test scores.

In nearly every case, the reality is papered over by concern trolls clutching their pearls and demanding we point our attention away from the real dangers in favor of papier-mâché boogeymen.

It’s almost as if the rich and powerful don’t want us to solve the real problems because that would cost them money.

Stimulus checks, rent moratoriums, universal healthcare, aide to small businesses – none of that is in the interest of the one percent.

Better to persuade the rest of us it’s better to suck up our pain and that doing so is really for our own good.

And one of the ways they do it is by crying crocodile tears over our children’s academics.

Kids are falling behind, they say.

Hurry up, Kids. Get going.

You’re behind!

You have to catch up to where you would be if there hadn’t been a global pandemic!

Hurry up! We’ve got this time table and you’re falling behind! FALLING BEHIND!

It’s utter nonsense.

I’m not saying that kids are learning today what they would have learned had COVID-19 not spread like wildfire across our shores.

But the idea that kids are not intellectually where they SHOULD be and that if we don’t do something about it now, they will be irreparably harmed – that is pure fantasy.

Let’s get something straight: there is no ultimate timetable for learning.

At least none that authentically can be set by educators or society.

People – and kids ARE people – learn when they’re ready to learn.

And when they’re ready is different for every person out there.

You can’t stomp around with a stopwatch and tell people they’re late. Your expectations are meaningless. It’s a matter of cognitive development plus environment and a whole mess of other factors that don’t easily line up on your Abacus.

For example, many kids are ready to learn simple math concepts like addition and subtraction in Kindergarten. Yet some are ready in preschool.

That doesn’t mean one child is smarter than another. It just means their brains develop at different rates. And it’s perfectly normal.

Moreover, kids who live in stable, loving households who don’t have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, overcoming neglect or abuse, etc. have a greater chance of being ready more quickly than those trying to manage under a heavier load of problems.

And if a child isn’t ready today, that doesn’t mean she’ll never be ready.

The mind does not take ultimatums. You don’t have to fill up every shelf as soon as space becomes available. In fact, you could never fill it all up if you tried. There’s always more room – just maybe not right now.

If a child doesn’t learn a certain concept or skill as soon as he or she is ready for it, that doesn’t mean he or she will lose out on that opportunity.

Brains are flexible. They’re almost always ready to grasp SOMETHING. It’s just not up to society what those somethings are or when they’re achievable.

That’s why Common Core Academic Standards were such a failure. They tried to map what schools teach like a train schedule, and then blamed educators when children’s brains didn’t match up with corporate expectations.

The key is providing people with the opportunities and the circumstances that maximize the likelihood of learning. Not pedantically checking off skills and benchmarks.

None of this is new.

I am not putting forward a radical theory of cognitive development.

Every teacher with an education degree is taught this in their developmental psychology courses. That’s why so many educational leaders don’t know anything about it.

Policymakers rarely have actual education degrees. In fact, many of them have never taught a day in their lives – especially at the K-12 level.

For example, Teach for America takes graduates from other fields of study (often business), gives them a couple weeks crash course in basic schoolology before throwing them in the classroom for a few years. Then they leave pretending to know everything there is about education, ready to advise lawmakers, work at think tanks, or otherwise set policy.

Imagine how things would change if we expected our educational leaders to actually comprehend the field of study they’re pretending to steer.

Meanwhile, people with 4-5 year degrees in education, like myself, have internalized things like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

We know that learning is best achieved when a person’s foundational necessities are met. At base are physiological prerequisites like food, clothing and shelter as well as the need for safety and security. Then comes psychological requirements like relationships and self-worth. Once all these primary needs have been met, we can most effectively achieve academic goals.

But for most kids the pandemic has been particularly hard on these primary needs. Food, shelter and safety are not nearly as certain today as they were just a year ago.

Children’s physiological needs aren’t being met because their parents livelihoods are in jeopardy. And the very idea that children should be sheltered or kept safe is mocked by the economy first concern trolls demanding parents choose between their children or their jobs.

They pretend to care about our kids so they can get us to do the very things that undermine our children’s safety. And it’s all somehow for our own good.

In-person school, hybrid or distance learning? They don’t really care.

The economy is what they’re really worried about. They want to keep it chugging along so they can continue siphoning profit off of the working class and into their pockets.

And if they have any genuine concern for our children at all, it is merely that our kids get through the academic system and enter the workforce on time so that our kiddos can inject more money (more value) into the gross domestic product.

We don’t need their disingenuous advice.

Our children are suffering, but they’re doing as fine as can be expected under the circumstances.

Yes, their educations have been disrupted by the virus. But a global pandemic will do that.

You want to fix the problem, nothing short of ending the crisis ultimately will work.

We can mitigate the damage, but marching kids into the classroom – sending them into a dangerous situation where they may get sick and (even more likely) bring the virus home to friends and family – will not help anyone.

Schools are not daycare centers. In fact, we shouldn’t have to resort to daycare centers, either, when faced with a deadly airborne virus.

Parents should be allowed (and encouraged!) to stay home and take care of their own kids. We should literally pay them to do so!

These appeals to keep the economy running full steam ahead no matter the cost are nothing less than class warfare. And many of us have been brainwashed that we’re on one side when we’re really on the other.

Let’s get one thing straight: none of this means learning will stop.

Kids are learning quite a lot, thank you.

They see us, adults, fighting over pandemic precautions like wearing face masks when in public. They see us denying science, calling the virus a fake as millions of people get sick and die. They see our President refusing to accept the results of the election. And sometimes they see the same people who should be keeping them safe sending them to school as if nothing is happening.

The media mogul marketeers would be wise to fear the lessons this generation is learning about the gullibility of adults and the willingness of the ruling class to sacrifice the common folk.

But even though much of the curriculum in 2020 has been unscripted, our schools still function.

In fact, teachers are working harder than ever to provide some continuity.

Where classrooms are closed, distance learning is taking up the slack.

No, it will never be comparable to the quality of instruction you can provide in-person. But even the quality of in-person instruction is not the same during a pandemic. Hybrid models with necessary precautions of social distancing and mask wearing are, themselves, substandard.

The best that we can do in most cases is learning at a distance.

Will all kids respond?

Absolutely not.

They’ll do the best they can. And this will largely depend on the environmental factors in their homes.

When you have children left to their own devices forced to navigate a virtual learning platform, they will inevitably hit roadblocks. They need their parents to help navigate the rough spots.

Kids are just that – kids. They need adults to put them on a schedule, make sure they wake up on time, have breakfast, and hold them accountable for attending their classes – even if those classes are held on-line.

There’s a reason the kids with the best grades often have the most involved parents – parents with the economic freedom to invest more time into their children.

That’s something else the marketeers don’t understand. Most of the problems of Covid America aren’t that different from Pre-Covid America. It’s a matter of degree.

Schools have always struggled to overcome the socioeconomic problems of their students. The only difference is that now we can’t just point to standardized test scores and blame it all on teachers.

The problem is systemic. You can only solve it by changing the system, itself.

A system that places dollars and cents over life and health will never be acceptable. And that’s what we’ve got. Still.

So don’t buy the latest version of corporate school baloney.

Our children aren’t falling behind.

They’re surviving a pandemic.

Fix the problem and they’ll be fine.

Fix the system and they’ll THRIVE.

But beware of know nothing policymakers who don’t have our best interests at heart.

Pay them no mind and the only thing left behind will be them.

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The First Taste is Free: Ed Tech Follows Drug Dealer Sales Techniques with Schools During Coronavirus Crisis

April 4, 2020 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Bill Gates, Budget, California, capitalism, Charter Schools, Child Predators, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Common Core, Competency Based Education, computers, Corporate Education "Reform", Cyber Charter Schools, Data Mining, edtech, Education, Healthcare, Learning, Local Control, Parents, Politics, Prejudice, privatization, School Funding, school segregation, school vouchers, Schools, Special Education, Standardized Testing, standards, student privacy, Students, Teachers, Technology Big Business, Computers, coronavirus, Corporate Education Reform, drug dealer, economics, ed-tech, edtech, education, educational technology, for-profit, Politics, Profit, public schools, teachers, technology

“Pst! Hey, Kid! Come here!”

Educational technologies are a multi-billion dollar industry.

“Who? Me?”

The coronavirus pandemic has closed schools across the globe, and districts have tried to solve this problem by putting their classes online.

“Yeah, you. I’ve got some… candy I want to give you.”

Nearly every ed tech company has offered help with this processes.

“Oh boy! I sure love candy… Wait a minute! How much does it cost?”

Teachers, parents, students and education activists are wary of educational technologies in the classroom, and research backs them up. Ed tech has been shown to widen socioeconomic divides, it hasn’t lived up to its promise of increasing academic gains, and – perhaps most tellingly – Silicon Valley executives restrict their own children’s use of technology and send them to tech-free schools.

“Nothing. It’s free.”

These for-profit corporations are offering limited time promotions – they’re providing additional services for free that would normally be behind a paywall.

“Oh goodie!”

Districts are jumping at the chance. They’re encouraging teachers to use apps, services and software that have never been tried before locally in an attempt to abide by continuity of education guidelines written by departments of education.

“That’s right. Absolutely free. But if you want some more, next time I’ll have to charge you a little something…”

So when the pandemic is over and classes eventually are reopened, a great deal of the technology that schools used to get through the crisis will no longer be on the house.

Continuing to use them will require an additional fee, and if districts end up budgeting for them, the money has to come from somewhere. So that means fewer books, field trips, tutors, classroom aides, and – yes – teachers.

In short, well-meaning governors, law-makers, administrators, school directors and even educators are participating in a program that in the long run may enrich private corporations but not be in the best interests of the students we’re supposed to serve.

I bring this up not to stop schools from using online learning during the crisis. Unfortunately that ship has sailed. Nor do I voice my objections to criticize teachers, parents or students. We all have to do what needs to be done to get through all this.

However, it is vital that we are aware of the compromises being made today so as to better avoid the pitfalls ahead.

When teachers use Zoom, Google Classroom, or any of dozens of other ed tech products during this season of social distancing, we must be aware that these should only be temporary measures. Do not resign yourself to any of this becoming the new status quo.

When classes resume, we can’t simply go back to normal. Nothing can ever be normal again. Normal is what got us into this mess – a society ill equipped to meet this pandemic – ill equipped to take care of its citizens, provide basic resources, equity and put people before profits.

The post coronavirus world must be one of universal healthcare, a social safety net for all and a robust, fully funded system of public education. We cannot allow it to be a dystopian world of edu-tech vulture capitalism where the economics of street corner drug pushers is used to dictate how public money is spent.

There are many clear reasons why.

First, education technologies are almost completely unregulated. Cybersecurity and student privacy laws are woefully out of date if not entirely nonexistent.

These applications collect a torrent of data on students. So do teachers, in fact, to calculate grades. However, if an educator were to share this information with outsiders, she could be sued. But if a corporation did the same thing, it falls into a legal no man’s land.

Each state has different laws denoting the limits of privacy.

The main federal law safeguarding student data privacy, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), was written in 1974 before much of these technologies even existed. It hasn’t been significantly amended since 2001.

So it’s left to individual districts, administrators, school boards and teachers to navigate these murky waters.

They end up trying to decipher the individual terms of service agreements and privacy statements with these companies that are often full of legal loopholes. In many cases, decision makers don’t even bother or give the job to school lawyers unversed in cybersecurity concerns or law.

While Congress has neglected its duty to regulate the industry, the matter is important enough that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) put out a strong warning. Two years ago, the Bureau cautioned consumers about the risks of classroom management tools like Class Dojo as well as student testing and remediation applications like Classroom Diagnostic Tools and Study Island.

The FBI warned schools and parents that widespread collection of student data involved in these applications could cause safety concerns if the information is compromised or exploited.

The Bureau was concerned about ed tech services because many are “adaptive, personalized learning experiences” or “administrative platforms for tracking academics, disciplinary issues, student information systems, and classroom management programs.”

And these are many of the same applications being used today for distance learning initiatives.

Education advocates have been sounding the alarm for years.

Commonsense.org – a nonprofit studying education issues – conducted a three-year review of 100 ed tech companies. It concluded that 74% of these businesses hold the right to transfer any personal information they collect if the company is acquired, merged, or files for bankruptcy. And since many are start-ups, this often happens.

The authors wrote that there is “a widespread lack of transparency, as well as inconsistent privacy and security practices” in how student information is collected, used, and disclosed.

Leaking student data is often not a security failure. It’s part of a company’s business model.

This is valuable information about one of the most lucrative demographics in the marketplace. Companies use it to help sell products targeted directly to consumers. And they can even sell student data as a commodity, itself.

For instance, imagine how much more effective the hiring process would be if businesses had access to applicants school attendance records. Imagine if businesses had an applicant’s entire academic record.

Employers could buy vast amounts of data and use algorithms to sort through it looking for red flags without fully comprehending what was being compiled. Imagine an applicant being turned down for a job because of low middle school attendance but not being able to explain that this was due to a legitimate illness.

There are reasons we protect people’s privacy. You shouldn’t have to explain your score on a 1st grade spelling test the rest of your life or have the need for special education services damage your credit rating.

Yet all of these things are possible when student data is up for grabs.

No one is protecting our children from this kind of mercantile future – one which will only be exacerbated if we allow educational technologies to become common place after the current crisis.

And tightening our student privacy laws, will not solve everything.

Hardly any attention is being paid to how these technologies can be used for harms unrelated to business and industry.

Tablets, laptops or monitoring devices such as cameras or microphones could be exploitable by tech savvy criminals – especially since many ed tech programs allow remote-access capabilities without the user even being aware of what is happening.

Pedophiles could use this data to find and abduct children. Criminals could use it to blackmail them. Other children could use it to bully and harass classmates.

It’s hard to imagine how children could be protected on such devices without increasing surveillance and thereby running similar risks. Using them will always involve a chance of endangerment so they should be kept away from the youngest and most vulnerable potential users.

How did we let ed tech get so out of control? Like so many problems of the pre-coronavirus world, money was allowed to dictate policy.

Global venture capital investments in ed tech finished 14 times higher by the end of the decade than they started. Investments went from $500 million in 2010 to $7 billion in 2019. And insiders expect that to triple in the next decade to more than $87 billion.

The two biggest spenders by far are China and the US.

Yet enthusiasm for such technologies are not nearly as prevalent among educators.

A 2019 study of educator confidence in ed tech conducted by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt found that 60% of teachers were concerned that implementing technology tools could damage the student-teacher relationship.

Moreover, education research in the United States concluded these technologies only widen the gap between different socioeconomic groups. Global initiatives like the One Laptop per Child program, which distributed 25 million low-cost computers with learning software to children in the developing world, failed to improve language or math results.

Meanwhile, students seem to be telling us they prefer more old school methods of instruction. Studies have shown preference for everything from physical books over eBooks to having “ordinary, real-life lessons” and “a smart person at the front of the room.”

Parent Blogger Alison McDowell has studied these issues in more depth than nearly anyone else. She warns that adaptive applications become the gatekeeper of children’s educations. They only allow students to move on once they’ve demonstrated mastery on a previous academic standard – or at least once they’ve been able to guess which one answer a programmer thought correct:

“The “personalized learning” model conditions students to view themselves as independent operators, free agents attempting to navigate a precarious gig economy alone. Screen-based isolation and an emphasis on data-driven metrics steadily erode children’s innate tendencies to creative cooperation. Which is ultimately better for society, an algorithm that learns each student in a classroom and delivers a pre-determined reading selection that they review and are quizzed on online, or a human teacher who selects an all class reading in which there is lively debate? The first scenario forecloses creative thought in service of data generation and reinforces there is but one correct answer. The second opens up chances for students to gain new insights while limiting opportunities for digital surveillance.”

Ed tech may allow us to stumble forward during the coronavirus quarantine, but it is not a central part of a healthy education system.

It may play a limited role in remediation and augmentation, but it cannot be the fulcrum around which everything else revolves.

I’d like to see a new education system built from the ashes of the old where every child has the chance to learn, a system that forgoes standardized testing and corporate-written academic standards for individualization and human interaction. I’d like to see a world where charter and voucher schools are things of the past, where schools are integrated and differences valued, where teachers and learning are respected and esteemed.

That is not an ed tech centered world. It is a student centered one.

It is a world where our priorities are such that even the promise of the new and the free won’t encourage us to indulge in practices that put our children in greater danger.

It is a place where the pusher has no power because his product is seen for what it is – treacherous and unnecessary.

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Economists Ate My School – Why Defining Teaching as a Transaction is Destroying Our Society

January 4, 2020 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Budget, capitalism, Charter Schools, Child Predators, Civil Rights, Compassion, Corporate Education "Reform", Education, Journalism, Labor, Learning, Local Control, Media, Parents, Philosophy, Politics, Prejudice, privatization, Propaganda, School Choice, School Funding, school vouchers, Schools, Social Justice, Social Justice Unionism, Standardized Testing, Students, Taxation, teacher autonomy, Teachers, union busting, Unions business, capitalism, charter schools, Corporate Education Reform, disaster capitalism, economics, economists, education, labor, parents, Politics, public schools, school vouchers, socialism, standardized testing, Students, teachers, teaching, transaction, union busting, vulture capitalism

Teaching is one of the most misunderstood interactions in the world.

Some people see it as a mere transaction, a job: you do this, I’ll pay you that.

The input is your salary. The output is learning.

These are distinctly measurable phenomena. One is calculated in dollars and cents. The other in academic outcomes, usually standardized test scores. The higher the salary, the more valued the teacher. The higher the test scores, the better the job she has done.

But that’s not all.

If the whole is defined in terms of buying and selling, each individual interaction can be, too.

It makes society nothing but a boss and the teacher nothing but an employee. The student is a mere thing that is passively acted on – molded like clay into whatever shape the bosses deem appropriate.

In this framework, the teacher has no autonomy, no right to think for herself. Her only responsibility is to bring about the outcomes demanded by her employer. The wants and needs of her students are completely irrelevant. We determine what they will become, where they will fit into the burgeoning economy. And any sense of curiosity or creativity is merely an expedient to make children into the machinery of industry and drive the gross domestic product higher to benefit our stock portfolios and lower corporate taxes.

And since this education system is merely a business agreement, it must obey the rules of an ironclad contract. And since we’re trying to seek our own advantage here, it’s incumbent on us to contain our workforce as much as possible. This cannot be a negotiation among equals. We must keep each individual cog – each teacher – separate so that they can’t unionize together in common causeand equal our power. We must bend and subject them to our will so that we pay the absolute minimum and they’re forced to give the absolute maximum.

That’s just good business sense. It’s the best way to establish this relationship.

Moreover, since we see education in terms of pure capital – human financial units flowing through a systemic framework – the same rules that govern business will govern our schools.

We can pit one student against another, one school against another, one district against another, one race, one gender – anything quantifiable can and should be placed in competition. Because that’s how you maximize outputs.

We can initiate hostile takeovers, engage in vulture capitalism where the loser schools are stripped of resources and to the victor go the spoils.

But who is the victor?

It’s getting confusing here. Do we give the plunder to the students at the schools with the highest outcomes? That’s illogical. After all, this whole process isn’t about what’s best for the students, per se. It’s about the system of profit and loss. So any profit squeezed from the defeated should go to the winners – the investor class who put forward the capital to start this whole process.

But that’s not how public school is organized. There are rules and regulations you have to follow – outdated legislation that doesn’t define the process in terms of economics.

We have to redefine those laws, rewrite them so that our goals are aligned. So we can enshrine virtues like choice and disruption over anything as old fashioned and pedestrian as the good of the child.

Thus we invent charter schools – institutions funded with tax dollars but not necessarily subjected to any other regulations – not run by elected school boards, not accountable to the public for how they spend that money or educate the children under their authority. They are subject only to the rules of the free market. The invisible hand guides all.

Thus we invent school vouchers – take that tax money and give it directly to the customer – the parents – to spend however they wish. If they squander it or are fooled by unscrupulous school systems and education purveyors, that is their fault. And, in fact, we will ensure that there are multiple pitfalls, deathtraps, blind alleys and snake oil salesmen in their way. Because competition maximizes profits.

Caveat emptor is the only rule.

Because, you see, the hidden premise in all this nonsense is that you are not the boss.

The community is not in control of this system – the business world is. Everyday people who might be parents or taxpayers or voters or concerned citizens – at best we are just consumers. It’s not our role to do anything but choose the simple, watered down options presented to us. If we try to exercise our rights through collective action – including our right to vote – that’s unfair and will be met with the rule of capital as speech until we’re drowned in it – in fact, drowned out.

This is how many people today envision teaching.

This is what has become of our schools.

This is what is being done to our children.

It’s obvious in the ways our laws are structured, the ways the media covers our schools and the ways our students are mistreated.

And it is mistreatment.

Because teaching is none of those things.

Teaching is not a transaction. It is relational.

Teaching is not about inputs and outputs. It’s about curiosity and knowledge.

It shouldn’t be governed by market forces that dehumanize all those involved into mere widgets to be manipulated in a systemic framework. Teaching should be governed by empathy, art and science.

The driving force behind any education system must be what’s best for the child. And that “best” ultimately must be defined by parents and children.

The goal of education can never be to prepare kids for a career. It must be to eradicate ignorance, to quench curiosity, to aid self-expression and guide students toward becoming whatever it is they want to become.

Measuring learning outcomes by standardized test scores can never achieve this goal. That’s like trying to monetize a rainbow or putting the ocean in a cage.

School privatization can never achieve this goal. That’s like treating human beings like cash, like thinking the rules of football can govern architecture.

And treating teachers like worker drones can never achieve this goal. You can’t entrust a whole class of people with the most precious thing you have – your children – and then treat them like dirt.

Teaching is hard to define.

It is messy and unruly and doesn’t fit into many of our society’s preconceptions.

But it is optimism made real.

It is an investment in the future. A mark of value and love.

It is the most vital and important thing a society can do.

And we’re messing it up – big time.

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Charter School Teacher Introduces Elizabeth Warren at Rally

June 4, 2019June 7, 2019 stevenmsinger Accountability, Bernie Sanders, Betsy DeVos, California, capitalism, Charter Schools, church and state, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Election, Elizabeth Warren, John King, Labor, Network for Public Education, Politics, privatization, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, school vouchers, Schools, Standardized Testing, Students, Teach for America, Teachers, Toxic Testing, union busting, Unions, voting 2020, California, charter schools, Corporate Education Reform, corporate school reform, Election, Elizabeth Warren, Go Public Schools Oakland, Oakland, Politics, President, standardized testing, Teach for America

CORRECTION:

In the first draft of this article, I called Sonya Mehta a “Charter School Lobbyist” in the title. On further examination of the facts, I realize this is unfair. She was a charter school TEACHER. I apologize to Ms. Mehta and truly regret any harm I have done her. I have changed the title to better reflect the facts. However, be advised that the text of the article, itself, has remained almost completely unchanged. Everything in the article is true to the best of my knowledge and backed up with sources that the reader can see by following the links in the text. My concern remains centered on Warren and what exactly her intentions are via education policy.

The biggest news from Elizabeth Warren’s rally in Oakland, California, on Friday wasn’t what she said.

It was who introduced her and what that says about Warren and her 2020 Presidential campaign.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “Warren was introduced by Sonya Mehta, a former Oakland schoolteacher.”

However, this characterization is inaccurate.

Mehta was not an authentic public school teacher. She taught in a non-union charter school called “Learning Without Limits.” She also was a policy fellow at GO Public Schools Oakland, which is a toxic charter promoter focused around that city.

In her introduction, Mehta didn’t explicitly advocate for school privatization. She promoted Warren’s early education and free college policies (Her speech can be seen here beginning at 57:30). But why would Warren, one of the smartest and most knowledgeable candidates in the race for the White House, let herself be associated with such a divisive and toxic legacy?

Only 6% of all U.S. students attend charter schools, yet with little accountability, selective enrollment, and the ability to pocket taxpayer money as profit, they cannibalize the funding necessary for the 90% that attend authentic public schools.

Warren should know better than this. Along with Bernie Sanders, Warren sits on the Senate Education Committee (HELP – Health, Education, Labor, Pensions).

So the question is this: was this a mistake made by her campaign staff or is this indicative of where Warren is on education policy?

She has said some very positive things in this campaign, not the least of which is that if elected, she would nominate someone with teaching experience as Secretary of Education.

But if Mehta is what she thinks an authentic teacher looks like, we are in big trouble.

We don’t need another Betsy Devos or Arne Duncan clone who just so happens to have taught at a regressive charter school. In fact, we already had that, too, in John King.

Sadly, that’s not even where the story ends.

Warren’s senior education policy advisor is Josh Delaney, a Teach for America temp who turned a 5-week crash course in education into two years in the classroom and then a career as an “expert” on our schools.

This is simply not acceptable for anyone courting education voters.

You can’t go to Oakland, a city which just experienced a massive teacher strike caused by school privatization, and then let yourself be introduced by someone with ties to school privatization!

Go Public Schools Oakland, the organization Mehta is associated with, is the major charter organization in city battling the union.

Who knows if Warren was intending to take sides on this issue, but she certainly seems to be signaling that if she did, it might not be with parents, teachers and students. It could be with the hedge fund billionaires backing school privatization.

How can she be so strong against these same people when it comes to Wall Street and economic inequality but appear completely ignorant (at best) or disingenuous (at worst) when it comes to school policy?

A look at Warren’s stated education policies over her history in public life doesn’t exactly calm the waters, either.

According to the Network for Public Education, Warren holds some regressive views when it comes to our schools.

The non-profit gives her a C on charter schools.

She has spoken out against some of the worst excesses of the industry, but supports the concept of schools that are publicly financed but privately operated.

In 2016 Warren strongly opposed lifting the cap on charter schools in Massachusetts. In 2017, Senator Warren expressed deep concern regarding the “waste, fraud, and abuse of federal money” at the hands of for-profit charter schools and charter school management organizations.

Unfortunately, she also praised the charter industry:

“Many charter schools in Massachusetts are producing extraordinary results for our students, and we should celebrate the hard work of those teachers and spread what’s working to other schools.”

Warren earned a B for her stance on school vouchers.

She had the courage to criticize DeVos, but her history with the concept of using public money to finance private education is complicated.

In a 2017 letter to DeVos, prior to her confirmation as Secretary of education, Senator Warren said the evidence on private school vouchers is “mixed at best” and called them “expensive and dangerous failures that cost taxpayers billions of dollars while destroying public education systems.”

However, back in 2003, she seems to have thought differently. She wrote a book with her daughter called “The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers are Going Broke.” In it, she makes a case for a universal school voucher program. She strongly supported giving parents taxpayer-funded vouchers they could use at any school – public, private or parochial. This would “relieve parents from the terrible choice of leaving their kids in lousy schools or bankrupting themselves to escape those schools.”

Later she said she never meant those vouchers to be used at private schools, but that is unclear from the text.

However, as spotty as Warren’s history is on school privatization, it is much worse when it comes to high stakes testing.

The Network for Public Education gives her a F on this issue.

In 2015, as Congress debated rolling back high stakes testing requirements that have unfairly assessed students for decades and used test scores as an excuse to deny poor and minority students the resources they need to succeed, Warren demanded testing stay in place. Along with three Democratic senators endorsed by Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), a lobbyist organization for the testing and school privatization industry, she insisted on stronger accountability measures based on testing to gain their support for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

Let me be clear: none of this is intended to be a purity test.

If the only candidate we can support is a perfect one, we will never find any politician to support.

But Warren has to make a decision whose side she is on.

At very least, she needs to come out and make a public statement clarifying her views here. She needs to say that she does not support charter schools or vouchers. Shouldn’t every Democratic candidate who wants the votes of educators do that?

Watch the whole rally here. Mehta’s introduction begins at 57:30.

Sell Your Soul to the Testocracy: Kamala Harris’s Faustian Teacher Raises

March 28, 2019 stevenmsinger Accountability, Arne Duncan, Betsy DeVos, Budget, California, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Hillary Clinton, Labor, Learning, Local Control, Obama, Politics, privatization, Republican, School Funding, Schools, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Students, Teach for America, Teachers, Unions Arne Duncan, bargain, Catherine Brown, Center for American Progress, Corporate Education Reform, corporate school reform, Democrat, Election, faust, Kamala Harris, Politics, President, teacher salary, testocracy

I love the idea of Kamala Harris’ plan to give teachers a pay raise.

But once we get past ideas, it’s way more troubling.

The California Senator and Democratic Presidential hopeful is proposing a $13,500 pay increase for the average teacher, with the exact number based on the size of each state’s pay gap.

That’s $315 billion more over a decade through federal matching funds, which amounts to a 23 percent salary increase for most educators.

Yes, please!

I could certainly use a raise.

But as Joe Moore said, “You can’t trust a promise someone makes while they’re drunk, in love, hungry, or running for office.”

And Harris IS running for office.

With this policy she’s wooing the national teachers unions and filling the neoliberal seat left by Hillary Clinton in 2016.

I love my union, but its leadership is like a college kid during spring break – ready to jump into bed with anyone who says the right words.

The fact of the matter is this plan also is favored by the people out to destroy my profession from the inside out.

Arne Duncan likes it.

Yes, THAT Arne Duncan!

Obama’s first Education Secretary. The guy who thought Hurricane Katrina was the best thing to happen to New Orleans because it allowed the government to close the public schools and replace them with charter schools.

The man who held federal grant money hostage unless schools enacted his unproven and disastrous corporate driven education reforms.

The man who encouraged pushing out teachers of color who had four year education degrees in favor of mostly white Teach for America temps with a few weeks crash course training.

The man who encouraged a rapid increase in high stakes standardized testing, narrowed curriculum, let class sizes balloon and decreased authentic lessons.

THAT Arne Duncan wrote this about Harris’ plan on Twitter:

“Radical idea: pay the professionals we entrust to teach, nurture and mentor our children a better salary!”

How to reconcile the two?

I draw your attention to what he said on a recent book tour:

“If we were willing to invest in high-quality early childhood education, if we’re willing to pay great teachers and great principals significantly more, the benefits to our society, the benefits to our economy, the benefits to our democracy I think would be extraordinary…

[But] Money is never enough. So you’ll never hear me say, it’s only about money. For me it’s always about your high expectations as well as high support. And we have to hold ourselves accountable for great results. When schools aren’t working, we have to be willing to challenge the status quo. So investment is part of it, but high expectations have to go with that, and we have to hold ourselves accountable as educators for results, absolutely.”

So for Duncan this plan is entirely consistent with corporate education reform.

In fact, it makes sense as a continuation of those policies.

When privatization cheerleaders like Duncan talk about “high quality teachers” and “accountability” what they really mean are strings attached.

In this case, they probably mean merit pay – giving bonuses to teachers whose students get high test scores.

It’s a terrible idea because it encourages bad behavior from teachers, administrators and districts, which in turn hurts kids.

Having all your teachers fight over the rich white kids who get the highest test scores doesn’t help the struggling students. It just means fewer educators will want to teach the underprivileged because they can’t take the financial hit that comes with it.

The result is test prep all day, every day.

I want a raise, but not if it means I have to bastardize my own profession down to that!

And it’s not just Duncan who loves this idea.

Catherine Brown, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress (CAP), actually helped Harris write this proposal.

“It could be transformative in terms of how we think about elevating and modernizing the teaching profession and the federal role in doing so,” Brown said.

CAP is a neoliberal think tank that worked closely with the Obama and Clinton administrations. And Brown is also the co-author of “The Progressive Case for Charter Schools”.

Any plan to raise teacher salary that is consistent with increased privatization is inherently suspect.

You can’t champion authentic public schools and public school teachers while also pushing for more institutions run without the same transparency, democratic government, and enrollment standards. If you think schools should be able to cherrypick which students to accept, they should be run by appointed bureaucrats, and it’s fine to cut student services while pocketing the profits, you aren’t a friend of public education.

In an article she co-wrote published by CAP called “Fact Sheet: Yes, Increase the Salaries of All Teachers,” she made it clear that merit pay is a good idea.

She wrote:

“…there is still debate surrounding whether all teachers need a raise, or if it is enough to make changes for a select group of teachers through differentiated or merit-based pay. While differentiated and merit-based pay can help alleviate some specific teacher shortages, such as those in subjects or schools that are high-needs, they are not a substitute for higher base pay.”

Ultimately, Brown comes out in favor of an across the board salary increase for teachers, but in her view merit pay is part of that solution.

This is a backdoor for the same snake oil the privatizaters have been selling for years.

As education blogger Peter Greene points out, the language used in Harris’ proposal is right from the neoliberal playbook. It is full of the same euphemisms and code words that have signaled school privatization, high stakes testing and merit pay.

Consider this gem:

“Every child deserves a world-class education, regardless of their ZIP code. Of all in-school factors that impact their success, there’s nothing more important than our teachers.”

“World class education” and “regardless of ZIP code” mean charter schools galore. And the only “success” these folks are interested in is high test scores.

Or this:

“Our plan will include a multi-billion dollar investment in programs that help elevate the teaching profession and support principals and other school leaders. This includes high-quality teacher and principal residencies early-career induction programs that pair new teachers with mentors and master teachers, career ladder models that allow for advancement opportunities for teacher leaders, and “Grow Your Own” programs that help increase teacher diversity.”

Greene says that the term “Career ladders” is a red flag because it usually denotes career stagnation. It’s code for adding more duties and responsibilities on teachers without actually furthering their careers.

If I’m honest, these are all red flags.

As much as I want a raise, I’m doubtful Harris’ plan would actually accomplish much other than selling my soul to the testocracy.

Ultimately that’s what this is – a Faustian bargain.

We need to invest in greater per pupil spending and let that translate into higher teacher salaries.

We need equitable and sustainable funding formulas that aren’t tied to testing or that don’t open the door for privatization.

And most of all, we need an understanding of the real challenges in education and not a piece of parchment where teachers are supposed to sign in blood.

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CORRECTION: