Student Projects are Better Than Tests 

 
 
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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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!

 

Disaster Capitalists Try Ending the Teacher Exodus by Erasing Experienced Educators

“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.

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.

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.

“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.

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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When Our Students Leave Us

Being a teacher is kind of like being a time traveler.  


 
So much of what you do and say changes those around you, and the effects can shoot off into the distant horizon far beyond your line of sight. 
 


I sometimes wonder what happened to certain students, if they continued to become the people they wanted to be or if time and circumstance caught up to them. 
 


As a public school teacher with more than two decades experience, sometimes the years sneak up on me. 


 
Students whom I remember as little children in middle school desks have grown into adults since they left.  


 
Not that I usually get to see their grown-up faces. Often times their lives never intersect with mine again and I never know what become of them.  
 


But occasionally an invitation, a chance encounter or an article in the local news gives a glimpse of who they are or where they end up. 
 


For example, a few months ago I was invited to a ceremony where one of my former students was being awarded the rank of Eagle Scout. He was getting ready to graduate high school now, and in the picture on the invitation he looked about ready to burst out of his scouting uniform – but he had the same smile, the same glimmer of mischief in the eye. 
 


At first, I wasn’t sure if I should attend – if after four years the student – let’s call him Doug – really wanted me to be there. But then he stopped by my classroom after school one day. He must have remembered that I’d still be there grading papers, rewriting lessons, making myself available if needed.  


 
“Are you going to come to the ceremony, Mr. Singer?” he asked in a way that left no doubt how important this was to him.  
 


I remembered Doug in class. He was always such a prankster. He was the first person to crack a joke – even reciting some classic but inappropriate standup routines as if they were his own. I’d shared with him some old Doctor Demento tapes and we’d had a few laughs.  
 


“I asked Mr. Kimble to come, too, but he said he was busy. He’s dead to me now,” he said with a smirk.  
 


It was a joke, but it struck me hard. Did it still matter to me whether I disappointed this child? The answer came back immediately – it still did. 
 


So I ventured out of the house on the weekend dressed as my weekday self. I sat through the speeches and solemn rites. I listened to his speech and finally understood why he wanted me there.  
 


He wanted me to see how far he’d come – that as dedicated to humor and jollity as he was, Doug could be serious as stone when need be. He had led his fellow scouts in refurbishing a local veterans memorial and showed himself to be a real leader. If he wanted the world to laugh, it was only in service of making it a better place.  
 


Several weeks later I found myself in a similar situation with another former student. 


 
Unlike the scenario with Doug, I wasn’t expecting anything. In fact, it took me a few moments to even recognize the boy through the man he had become.  
 


I was at a local movie theater with a section of my school’s Dungeons and Dragons club. I started the extracurricular club and am lead sponsor. During the week, we get together and play the tabletop role playing game. I try to have them both organize the adventures and play through them. Some kids function as Dungeon Masters and others have characters like warriors, wizards, elves, orcs and dragon-borns.  
 


On this weekend, one of our local families had paid for the group to see the “Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” movie. I was herding the kids together in front of the movie poster to take a picture of the event when this full-grown man walks up to me and says, “Hey! Mr. Singer!” 
 


I squinted at him, but he had a huge grin on his face and seemed happy to see me. Then I noticed that one of my club members was at his waist pulling on his sleeve asking for some popcorn.  
 


We shook hands and he introduced himself as Jamal’s big brother. Then he asked if his brother was good in class or bad like he had been.  


 
That’s when it came together. I saw through the adult and to the kid he had been – a kid pretty similar to his brother Jamal. 


 
It must have been 10 years ago. He had been a diminutive boy in a class of kids who had hit puberty a few months before him. He had been shy and often got picked on. He tried hard on his assignments – at least the ones he turned in.  
 


The adult version chatted with me as his brother went to the concessions stand with the money he had given him. Though he lived a few neighborhoods away these days, he tried his best to come back to the district to look out for his brother.  


 
He didn’t go into many details, but it was obvious he had gone through a lot in the intervening years. He had a limp and smelled of musty pine trees. But he was clearly there for Jamal when no one else was.  
 


Before the movie, there was a preview for a documentary about Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani education advocate and winner of the Noble Peace Prize. Several students, including Jamal, turned to me in my corner in the back and chanted her name because we had talked about her in class. 
 


Jamal’s big brother was still smiling, proud that his little brother knew who this brave woman is before the film had explained it. 
 


If you saw him on the street, you might not think him a success story. He seemed an average person just doing what he could to get by. But I knew (at least some) of the journey he had taken to get there. I knew how hard won his peace was. And I recognized that smile still on his face – so rare when he had been in class but now a permanent feature. I think that is success, too. 
 


But the last former student I want to talk about is Marquis.  
 


He was in one of my first classes. I remember him as a gawky middle schooler with string bean arms and legs below a sullen face.  
 


When I started, if there was one student sent to the office that day – it was him. If there was one kid shouting out a swear word or picking a fight, it was Marquis. This was an angry kid who demanded attention – positive, negative, it didn’t matter. 
 


I used to make badly behaved students stay 15 minutes after school for detention. It’s not something I do so much these days but I was a new teacher then – strict and consumed with reciprocal justice. In fact, students had to WORK during my detentions. No sleeping or even doing homework. They had to copy definitions out of the dictionary for the full time. If they slacked off, I added more time. Some days a 15-minute detention could last an hour, because if I reported that they hadn’t satisfied me, the principal would keep them on the weekend or in a longer detention during the week with an administrator. 
 


I remember Marquis whining and complaining as he copied definitions. He’d spend more time whining than working – but eventually he learned.  
 


Eventually he’d come in, sit up straight in his seat and copy those definitions from start to finish like a machine. He did it so well, his scores on my vocabulary quizzes started to improve. But he still ended up getting detentions – at least twice a week.  
 


One day he finished the definitions and I told him he could go. “Can I stay?” he said.  
 


“What?” 
 


“Can I stay and copy definitions a little longer?” 
 


I almost started to cry – right then and there. 
 


So THAT’S why he always got detentions. He wanted somewhere to go after school. He wanted someone to talk to, someplace safe to wait so he could walk home unmolested by the other kids.  


 
He never got detention again because I told him he could stay with me any day he wanted after school for as long as he wanted. And he did. Sometimes we’d talk. Sometimes he’d do work. It didn’t matter, but his behavior in my class improved.  
 


At the end of the year, when he passed English Language Arts – one of very few classes he managed to get a C or better in that year and the first time he had passed ELA in middle school – I told him how proud I was of him. And he smiled the biggest smile I’ve ever seen.  
 


He continued building on that success, too. He went up to the high school and got better and better grades. He kept out of trouble and became one of those kids everyone seems to know and most people seem to like. He was the kind of kid that every teacher had an anecdote about.  
 


I hadn’t thought about him in some time, but then an item appeared in the local news.  
 


Drive-by Shooting Kills Area Man. It was Marquis.  


 
He had just been walking along the street helping some younger kids to the basketball courts. By all accounts he has straightened up his life, got a college degree and was just starting on a career as a social worker in the same community where he grew up.  


 
It was a shock.  
 


I turned to my files and I saw I still had a folder with his name on it – back when I used to collect such things. Inside were a few old write ups, and pages and pages of vocabulary words in his childish handwriting.  
 


We never know what will happen to the kids in our classrooms.  
 


We never know who will be successful, who will be happy, who will live fulfilling lives.  
 


But we try – we try SO HARD – to give our kids everything we can. 
 


Doug had a straight path, and so far he’s walked it without incident.  
 


Jamal’s brother had a lot of bumps on the road, but he’s still walking it.  
 


And poor Marquis. He walked as far as he could. I wish we could have made for him an easier road – and a longer one. 
 


“Count no man happy until the end is known,” wrote the ancient Greek story-teller Herodotus
 


Known as the father of history, he meant that you never know if someone is truly happy until their death, because even a seemingly happy person today could have a tragedy befall them tomorrow taking away everything that made them happy. 
 
 


I think about that sometimes when considering the fate of my former students. 
 


 
After more than two decades in the classroom, it seems to me that the quality of the journey is more important than whether it may all disappear tomorrow. 
 


 
After all, knowing the fate of any of our students wouldn’t really change what we do for them. We’re teachers – will give them our all no matter what.  
 
 


Because that’s the road we’ve chosen to walk
 


 

Like this post? I’ve 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!

book-2

Forgotten Pre-Covid Report Reveals Standardized Testing Weaknesses in PA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The report was conducted because of legislation written by state Sen. Ryan P. Aument (R-Lancaster County). It directed the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee to “study the effectiveness of standardized testing, including the Keystone Exams and SATs, and their use as indicators of student academic achievement, school building performance, and educator effectiveness.”

The key findings are as follows:

1)The majority of principals and teachers disapprove of the state’s standardized tests – both the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) tests given in grades 3-8 and Keystone Exams given in high school. They think these tests are ineffective, expensive and harmful to district curriculum and students.

2) State law allows parents to opt their children out of testing for one reason only – religious grounds. Parents are using this religious exemption in increasing numbers. This puts districts in danger of violating federal participation and accountability standards.

3) It has been suggested that the state allow two additional reasons for parents to opt their children out of testing – philosophical grounds and health concerns. It is unclear whether doing so would increase overall opt outs or not.

4) The federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) passed in 2015 allows the use of the SAT and/or ACT test to take the place of high school standardized testing. It has been suggested the Commonwealth replace the Keystone Exams with these tests. The report finds the ACT and/or SAT would successfully determine college readiness and reduce the overall amount of standardized testing. However, this would not allow other uses of current state tests like evaluating teacher effectiveness and school building performance.This may not matter though because the report also casts doubt on whether the current tests (PSSA and Keystone Exams) do an adequate job of assessing teacher or building performance now or even if student tests can be accurately used to evaluate teachers and schools.

There’s a lot of information here. Let’s look at each finding in turn.

1) PA Educators Hate Standardized Tests

When it comes to the PSSAs, 67% of principals and 76% of teachers said the tests were ineffective indicators of student achievement.

There was slightly more support for the Keystone Exams. This time 45% of principals said the test was an ineffective indicator of student achievement (with 27% saying the tests were effective). Meanwhile, 60% of teachers said the test was ineffective.

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.

Most principals (approximately 80-90%) said that students are taught test-taking skills, and their schools administered practice tests, bench-mark tests, and/or diagnostic tests to prepare students for the PSSA exams. This held for teachers, too, with 81-88% saying they teach test-taking skills and administer practice tests. Principals also said the costs of this additional test prep varied from $200 to more than $100,000.

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, PDE 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.”

2) Opt Outs on the Rise

Many states allow parents to opt their children out of standardized testing. Some do so in cases of a physical disability, medical reasons, or emergencies. A few allow opt-outs based on religious objection – like Pennsylvania. Some states allow opt-outs for any reason whatsoever.

The religious exemption is not used widespread throughout the state and most schools meet the 95% participation rate required by the federal government. However, use of the religious exemption is definitely on the rise – enough so that the authors of the report find it alarming:

“Meanwhile, as previously indicated in this section, schools throughout the country are experiencing and grappling with an increase in the number of parents seeking to have their children opt-out of standardized testing now that new state assessments have been implemented pursuant to the federal requirements. Pennsylvania is no exception to this trend and is also experiencing an increase in the number of parents utilizing the religious opt-out.”

For the PSSA tests, opt outs increased from 2013-14 to 2016-17. However, total numbers in school year 2017-18 decreased sightly.

Opt outs went from 1,886 to 6,425 to 15,644 to 19,012 to 16,961.

During the same time period for the Keystone Exams, opt outs steadily increased each year but were at lower overall rates.

For the high school test, opt outs went from 382 to 666 to 1,000 to 1,313 to 1,633.

These are vitally important figures because opt out data is rarely tabulated and released to the public. Many media accounts actually state the opposite of the data in this report – in particular that opting out has decreased since Congress passed the ESSA in 2015. Apparently the media got this one wrong.

Though the religious opt-out is the only reason specifically allowed in state Chapter 4 regulations, PDE reports there are five additional ways that students end up not taking the tests:

1) Other Parental Request – parents simply refusing to let their kids participate but not objecting based on specifically religious reasons.

2) No Attempt and No Exclusion Marked – students who are given the test but do not answer enough questions to receive a score.

3) No Test – no test record on file for unknown reasons.

4) Extended Absence – a student missed the testing and make-up window due to absences.

5) Other – does not fit any of the other categories.

Federal law – in particular No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and subsequent reauthorizations of that legislation – requires states to use student participation in standardized testing as a factor in a state’s accountability system. According to the report, any district with less than 95% of students taking the test should be “addressed.”

The report does not go into any further detail about what this means, other than to say that falling under 95% can:

“…ultimately result in a reduced achievement/proficiency measure… If the student participation rate falls below 95 percent, states are required to calculate student achievement/proficiency by dividing the number of students scoring proficiently by no less than 95 percent of the total students (which effectively assigns a score of “0” to all nonparticipants once the participation rate has fallen below 95 percent).”

In effect, the district gets a bad mark on a piece of paper. So what?

Under NCLB, schools with poor performance could receive sanctions like state takeover or lower funding. However, this is extremely unlikely – especially since the passing of ESSA. This newest reauthorization of the law gives states leeway in designing their accountability systems. It leaves the enforcement of this 95% participation rate up to the states, requiring them to develop an accountability plan in the event that a school or district fails to meet this standard.

So a school would only be punished if the state decided to do so. If a state legislature decided to allow parents to opt their children out for any reason at all, they would not have to take any punitive measures. Since the ESSA, the buck stops at the state house door on this one. California, for example, takes note of low participation rates but these rates are not factored into a school’s rating. On the other hand, Florida mandates direct intervention from the state’s Department of Education until participation rates are met.

3) Impact of New Reasons to Opt Out

This is where things get a bit sticky.

The report mentions the idea of expanding the options for opting-out of statewide assessments (e.g., PSSA and Keystone Exams) to include objections based on philosophical grounds or due to health issues.

On the one hand, the authors write “The impact of adding opt-out categories may be minimal.” They don’t know if more people would use the expanded options or if the same numbers who use the religious exemption today might simply divide themselves up among all three options.

The authors worry, however, that new pathways to opt out may increase the total number of people refusing the tests for their children and would reduce Pennsylvania’s participation rate in standardized testing.

This is a particularly troubling paragraph:

“The existence of opt-outs (religious or otherwise) has the potential to negatively impact a state’s participation rates and may potentially impact a state’s [Local Education Agency (LEAs)] and schools achievement/proficiency rate and ultimately the ability of a state to be in compliance with federally required assessments and accountability measures. Furthermore, providing opt-outs and giving parents notice of such has the potential to conflict with the message about the importance of standardized testing. Ultimately placing the state departments of education and local school districts in the potentially awkward position of having to explain why it is important for students to participate in testing (given the federal requirements), while also giving and notifying parents of the opt-out options for their children. In 2015, US Department of Education sent out letters to a dozen states flagging their low participation rates (statewide, or at the district or subgroup level) on the 2014-15 school year assessments and indicated that they needed to create a plan to reduce opt-outs due to low participation rates.”

This seems to be the order of the day at PDE. It’s why earlier this year, school administrators were advised by state officials to crack down on parents opting their children out of standardized tests.

For the first time in 8 years, I, myself, had to jump through several hoops to opt my own daughter out this year when in the past a simple phone call had sufficed.

I was asked to send in a letter, sign a confidentiality statement and go to the school to examine the test before they would excuse my little girl from the tests. It was an unnecessary hassle meant to discourage parents from doing what they thought was right and exercise their rights through state law.

And all of it is based on a cowardly and incomplete understanding of federal law. If Commonwealth schools fall below 95% participation in the test and get a bad mark on a worthless metric, it doest have to matter. No matter how many letters the federal government sends to the state legislature or PDE, the law is clear. The state is in charge here. Our legislature can choose to side with taxpayers, residents, and citizens or with civil servants and strongly worded letters.

4) Replacing the Keystone Exams

There’s not much more to add to this than the initial finding.

The authors of the report say there would be no problem with replacing the Keystone Exams with the ACT or SAT because these national tests would properly assess students’ college and career readiness.

The report is actually pretty shoddy in this regard not really examining the claims of the College Board which makes both tests. The authors just pretty much accepted the College Board’s word wholesale. Nor was their any evaluation of what teachers and principals thought about these tests like there had been for the PSSA and Keystone Exams.

However, the report does make a good point about test reduction. Many students already take the SAT or ACT test, so eliminating the Keystones would reduce the over all amount of tests they had to take.

Also the authors deserve credit for writing about how using student test scores to evaluate teachers and schools is seriously bad practice.

According to the report, 77 percent of principals and 93 percent of teachers said PSSA tests were not effective indicators for teacher evaluations, with similar figures for the Keystone Exams and building performance evaluations.

While everything in the report may not be 100% accurate, it includes important information that should be wider known.

In particular, it matters that the majority of teachers and principals throughout the state disapprove of standardized testing. If we trust our educators at all, we should take steps to reduce or abolish high stakes testing – not continue the same dismal policy that has achieved nothing positive in 20 years of NCLB.

In addition, the report has trustworthy data about opt outs throughout the Commonwealth. Unlike what has been reported in the media, opting out is not on the decline, it is on the rise.

If we value parents and their autonomy to make decisions for their own children, we should at very least expand their ability to refuse the test for their children without having to give anyone a reason. Being parents is reason enough.

The Keystone Exams should be thrown in the trash, because that’s what they are – trash. At very least they should be replaced with the SAT or ACT. Even better to remove any requirement for standardized tests wholesale – and that includes the PSSA.

The ESSA allows states a lot of leeway about how and what accountability system they use. There is no need to worry about some imperial federal power invading Pennsylvania to force our hand with standardized testing. We should call their bluff on this. I’ll bet that if we did so, many other states would do the same.

Standardized testing is another failed education policy. Our legislators would do good to read this report and make up their own minds about it.

Though a few years and disasters have happened since its publication, it doesn’t deserve to be forgotten by the very people who ordered it to be written in the first place.


 

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Lobbyists Congratulate Themselves for 20 Years of NCLB Standardized Testing

It’s hard to learn your lesson – especially if doing so costs you money.

Case in point: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, the largest lobbying organization in the country, issued a new report examining the impact of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the George W. Bush era law making standardized testing the centerpiece of K-12 education.

So an organization representing oil companies, pharmaceutical giants and automakers just opined on public school policy as if it were made up of experts.

And guess what?

Business folks don’t know what the heck they’re talking about in education.

Because after sorting through 20 years of NCLB controversy, political shenanigans and factual mistakes, the supply side cabal thinks the law is just fine.

It’s kind of like a judge watching a driver plow his car into a brick wall repeatedly and then instead of taking away his license, awarding him a safe driver certificate.

It doesn’t take a political scientist to figure out why.

Think about it. These are supply side cultists. If our education policy is working just fine as is, then there’s no need to raise taxes on all the business interests the free market fan club represents to fix the problem.

And, moreover, we can keep funneling the education dollars we do spend to corporations (many of whom are represented by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation) who profit off the law by making tests, grading tests and selling test prep material.

The only thing shocking here (maybe) is the way the media publishes the Foundation’s results as if they were truths handed down from on high.

What’s the matter, journalists? You’ve never heard of a conflict of interest?

An organization like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation with proven ties to the Koch Brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is somehow the epitome of unbiased advocacy!?

The organization’s own report describes the Foundation as “tireless advocates for high-quality academic standards, assessments, and accountability as tools for educational equity.”

By its own admission, then, this is the testing industry evaluating itself. And – surprise – it gave itself a high score!

The report was written by Dan Goldhaber and Michael DeArmond of the Center for the Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) at the American Institutes for Research with a qualitative analysis by Brightbeam CEO Chris Stewart and his staff.

CALDER is a federally-funded nonprofit organization with several testing industry-funded and conservative think-tank members in management, on the advisory board, and working as independent researchers – in case, you thought anything they produced might be fair and balanced.

Brightbeam is a corporate education reform think tank financed by the usual billionaires such as Michael Bloomberg, Alice Walton, Jim Walton, Laurene Jobs Powell and Mark Zuckerberg. And Stewart is a long-time standardized testing and school privatization cheerleader – not exactly the kind of people who can afford to find much fault in NCLB because doing so would put them out of work.

The report highlights eight key findings – four positive and four negative.

First, the authors of the report pat each other on the back because NCLB collected so much yummy data that had been unavailable previously. In particular, the law extracted data from the nation’s schools based on race, socioeconomics and special needs. “No longer were school districts able to hide the performance of some students behind an average,” the report states.

It’s certainly true that NCLB collected a mountain of data. However, such information conceivably could have been gathered without making standardized testing the fulcrum around which schools turn. It could just as easily have been collected based entirely on classroom grades. It’s just that doing so might have been considered invasive and a violation of privacy. You might have had to explain why you wanted such data first – but why explain when you can just take?

Moreover, it’s strange to celebrate NCLB for disallowing hiding student performance behind an average when that’s exactly what it does. Everything is an average now! Average test scores, aggregate passing scores, whether your school made adequate yearly progress… it’s all averages! Oh to go back to the times when you could look at a single student’s academic record without having to compare it to anyone else!

Second, the authors claim student test scores increased because of NCLB especially among Black, Hispanic, and low-income students. However, this depends on how you massage the data.

Test scores have stayed relatively the same throughout the last 20 years with dips here and rises there. No matter the test, the overall trajectory has been pretty flat. You can focus here or focus there to create a picture that supports whatever narrative you want, but taken as a whole, there has not been any significant progress as shown by test scores.

But even if there had been, let’s not forget that no one has ever proven standardized test scores actually have anything to do with real academic progress. Just because you get a good score on a multiple choice test, it doesn’t mean you’ve actually learned to do anything but take a very limited and artificial test that is far removed from the circumstances where anyone actually uses the skills the test purports to be assessing.

Third, the report celebrates the production of “more reliable, comparable education data.” This is a suspect claim.

Are test scores more reliable than classroom grades? That has never been proven. In fact, when it comes to predicting future success in college or careers, there is plenty of evidence that classroom grades do a better job than test scores. After all, tests are based on work done over a relatively few number of days. Grades are based on an entire year’s worth of work.

However, it is true that test scores are more easily comparable because they come from the same assessments. Why this is so important is unclear. Learning is not the same as sports statistics. It is not a competition. Students learn when they’re ready to learn – not based on anyone’s schedule. What matters is if they learn at all.

Fourth, the authors admit “Reforms in teacher evaluation and school turnaround initiatives did not consistently improve student outcomes at scale, in part due to significant variation in quality of implementation.”

It is interesting that even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce can’t spin NCLB into an unquestionable success. But it is almost a cliche among the standardized testing industry that any failures of the big tests are always excused as failures solely of “implementation.” If teachers and districts just tried harder to put the testing industry’s plans into effect, everything would be working perfectly. It’s these darn teachers and schools! Whine! Cry! Sob!

For the negative findings, the report concluded there were unknowns about the impact of NCLB that should be further studied.

First, they were unsure if schools serving minorities and the poor ended up getting more money to improve than they otherwise would have done. SPOILER ALERT: they did not.

The original Elementary and Secondary Education Act passed under Lyndon B. Johnson was focused on equity – the exact concern the authors of the report pretend to be all about. However, when the law was reauthorized as NCLB in 2002 (and reauthorized again in 2015 as the Every Student Succeeds Act) it focused instead on test scores as a gatekeeper to equity. Instead of looking at needs, you had to pass the tests to get the money to meet your needs. And if you had needs, that meant your district and teachers were failing so they had to lose funding to punish them, first. Somehow you were supposed to end up with more funding after all that nonsense.

Second, if schools did get more funding because of test scores, the authors of the report were unsure what schools did with it. SPOILER ALERT: It went to test prep and charter school expansion.

NCLB refocused education on test scores, so if students did badly on the assessments, they needed test prep material. And if the teachers and districts weren’t miraculously overcoming social, economic and special needs of students in impoverished areas, money was given to open competing charter schools.

Did this help? Just the opposite. Now you have two schools vying for an even smaller pot of funding but one of these schools (the charter) doesn’t have to follow the regulations the others school must. So anyone with no background in education can open a school, hire uncertified teachers, make decisions on how to spend tax dollars without an elected school board, etc. Not helpful.

Third, the authors of the report were unsure how many struggling schools became successful under NCLB. SPOILER ALERT: Not many.

You don’t help a malnourished person by starving him even further or making him compete for food. The same with school districts. In almost every case where a school miracle is proposed in which kids simply pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, the reality turns out to be a byproduct of creative accounting or selective data.

That was the entire foundation of NCLB – George W. Bush’s fairy tale about Texas schools during his time as Governor which miraculously improved when you tested the heck out of them. That never happened, and neither did it happen when his dream became national policy.

Take New Orleans, a district often held up by the testing and privatization industry as a success. This is the only all-charter school district in the country. After 2005 and Hurricane Katrina, a predominantly white Republican legislature forced the district’s public schools to become charters – outright experimenting on a majority African American city. The result? School enrollment declined from 65,000 before the hurricane to 48,000 a dozen years later. The most recent state scores rated 49% of the city’s charter schools as D or F, based on their academic performance. The New Orleans district scores are below the state average, and that’s saying something since Louisiana is one of the lowest performing states in the nation.

Not exactly an overwhelming success.

Fourth, the authors wondered if NCLB might have resulted in non-academic improvements – things like a reduction in chronic absences, school climate, etc. SPOILER ALERT: Nope.

A focus on standardized testing does not convince more kids to come to school. Few kids get excited about taking tests. They get excited about broad academic curriculum, arts and extra curricular activities – the kinds of things districts had to cut back on because of NCLB.

So there you have it. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation is proud of their little report about the impact of NCLB. They give themselves a gold star.

The reality though is much different than what you’ll find on this bit of propaganda.

Any reasonable examination of the last 20 years in education would show this policy is ripe for repeal. We need to forgo standardized testing entirely in our public schools – not double down on them for yet another decade of failure.

Not only should it not be required to determine which schools need what funds, it should be kicked out of our schools like foxes from the henhouse.

And charter schools should be abolished in all 45 states plus the District of Columbia that have been duped into passing laws allowing them.

We need to put the focus back on equity, back on student need.

Let’s get real. Poverty and wealth are the most important factors determining test scores. This shows up on every standardized test. In fact, that’s what the name means – STANDARDIZED test – these assessments are normed on a bell curve reflecting family income and education. Kids from families from higher socioeconomic brackets are at the top of the curve and poor kids are on the bottom.

And consider this: nearly half the students in the U.S. now qualify for free or reduced lunches – the federal measure of poverty. So if we really want to help kids achieve academically, we need to first reduce the impact of poverty on children and families by making sure that they have access to nutrition, medical care, and good housing. Ensure pregnant women get medical care so their children are born healthy.

That’s how you improve education. The federal government should fully fund the schooling of students with disabilities and at least triple the funding for low-income schools. Pay teachers the kinds of wages that will keep them on the job and stop the steady stream of educators out of the field. Teachers should be treated like professionals and never have to work at second or third jobs to make ends meet. Assessment should be a teacher’s job – they should write their own tests as we trusted them to do for generations. And we can use the billions in savings now wasted on standardized testing instead to reduce class sizes so children can get individualized help from their teacher.

In short, don’t give students corporate canned tests. Give them well-maintained schools with nurses, counselors, and libraries with flesh-and-blood librarians. These are just some of the ways we could actually make things better.

It’s been two decades already. People know high stakes testing has failed despite whatever public relations reports are issued by lobbyist organizations. It’s time we had the courage to admit NCLB was a mistake and acted to finally put things right.

It may hurt some businesses that rely on testing to make a buck. It may require big corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. But that is the only way to improve education.

We must put our money where our mouths are – or else be quiet.


 

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

Standardized tests are one of America’s most racist institutions.

Year after year, decade after decade, the poor and people of color get fewer school resources, larger class sizes, narrowed curriculum and lower acceptance to colleges.

And all this simply because they tend to score lower on these types of assessments than richer, whiter people.

That’s no accident.

Yet, as defenders of standardized testing (and racist practices in general) love to point out, not all minorities consistently fail these tests.

In particular, Asian-Americans – taken as a whole – score better than white Americans.

So the tests are totally fair, right? Case closed?

Wrong.

Asian-Americans, who make up roughly 5 percent of public school enrollment nationally, are just as much victimized by standardized testing as any other minority. The only difference is their success is held up as an excuse for upholding this deeply inequitable practice.

It’s kind of like if two people were pitted against each other in a race, and one had to run a mile, and the other had to run 1.5 miles – and the second person actually won. Would that make the race fair?

No. Not at all. But the organizers point to the result as proof that running that extra distance in the same amount of time was nondiscriminatory. So stop complaining!

Weighted practices like these have impacts that go far beyond numbers on a page.

Take the SAT. Asian-American students typically score higher than other students on America’s most popular college gatekeeper as they do on other standardized tests. For instance, among high school students who graduated in 2020, Asian students scored an average of 632 on the SAT math section, compared with 547 for white students. The average math score overall was 523 (out of 800).

What does this really mean?

ASIAN AMERICANS ARE NOT A MONOLITH

First of all, when we talk about Asian-American students doing well on standardized tests, we’re generalizing. We don’t mean all Asians – only a certain percentage of certain kinds of these people. After all, Asia is a pretty big continent.

According to the US Census Bureau, there are roughly 23 million Americans of Asian descent, and the largest subgroups are people of Chinese and Indian ancestry with populations of approximately 5 million each. Next comes people of Filipino (4.2 million), Vietnamese (2.2 million), Korean (1.9 million) and Japanese descent (1.5 million). 

But those are just the biggest subgroups. When you add in all Asian-Americans including Pacific Islanders, you get more than 50 different ethnic groups with varying languages, immigration histories and educational experiences. 

Any generalization about such a diverse group will leave out important details, including test scores.

ALL ASIANS DON’T GET HIGH TEST SCORES

For example, high test achievement is not something attained universally by all people who can trace their parentage through that part of the world. It’s actually much more common for East Asians than others. In particular, we’re talking about people of Chinese, Korean and similar heritages.

If you know anything about those countries, it’s easy to understand why this is so. Historically, these areas have had their own kinds of standardized exams for centuries.

In these countries, college admission often is decided on a single high-stakes test – the gaokao in China or the suneung in South Korea. People whose cultures trace back to these parts of the world are used to engaging in intense test prep as a regular feature of teenage life. So many Asian immigrant parents with ties to these countries often see the SAT or ACT as the equivalent of Asia’s admissions tests and thus engage in test prep as a matter of course, regardless of cost or effort.

This goes far in explaining why Chinese- and Korean-Americans have the highest rate of participation in SAT/ACT test prep – even more than people from other Asian ethnicities.

In one study, more than half of Korean-Americans and 42 percent of Chinese-Americans took an SAT prep course before college compared to 35.6 percent of white students, 32.4 percent of Hispanic students and 40.4 percent of black students. This is true regardless of household income. Affluent Asian Americans were more likely to take test prep, but 46.7 percent of low-income Korean-Americans still took a prep course.

Test prep is a double edged sword. The companies providing such services claim to increase test scores hundreds of points, but average gains are more often in the range of 10-30 points.

East Asian-Americans show statistically significant gains from test prep much more often than others. This is partially due to having better access to adequately funded K-12 schools than other minority groups. They are less likely to attend racially segregated, poorly resourced schools, unlike their Black and Hispanic peers. Even Asians from lower socio-economic backgrounds tend to get more out of test prep than others because they are more likely to attend well-resourced schools than their counterparts in the same socio-economic bracket.

And let’s not forget that test prep companies target Asian-American communities. You’ll find them in urban centers like Koreatown in Los Angeles or heavily Asian suburbs such as the San Gabriel Valley. Advertising material for these services are often in multiple languages or displayed in Asian-language newspapers and ethnic media.

Most of New York City’s 411 prep centers are based in Queens and Brooklyn, “with over a quarter of them… most notably in the boroughs’ Asian enclaves of Flushing and Sunset Park in Brooklyn,” The New York Times reported.

“On the opposite coast, 861 such tutoring centers exist in California’s Orange, Santa Clara and Los Angeles counties, all heavy with Asian-American families,” the article states.

So it’s no wonder why certain Asian-American communities – especially East Asian communities – tend to favor test prep and achieve high standardized test scores.

ASIANS ARE HELD TO UNFAIR STANDARDS

But let us not forget that East Asians are not ALL ASIANS. If you’re unlucky enough to be from other parts of that massive continent or the island chains of the Pacific, the US will still paint you with the same broad brush.

All Asian-Americans – whether of East Asian descent or not – are held to a higher standard in things like college admissions where overachievement is considered the norm and little else is tolerated.

A National Study of College Experience led by Espenshade and Radford (2009) showed that a student who self-identifies as Asian will need 140 SAT points higher than whites, 320 SAT points higher than Hispanics, and 450 SAT points higher than African Americans.

This is unfair to East Asians because it expects them to jump through more hoops than white people or other ethnic groups just to be accepted, but it is even worse for other Asian subgroups.

A 2022 study of the nine-campus University of California – the state with the country’s largest Asian-American population – concluded that Filipino, Thai, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander and Laotian students were admitted at below-average rates and that many ethnicities including Samoans and Chamorros, were underrepresented in the system.

Why? They had lower test scores than admissions officials expected.

Such an emphasis on standardized testing is not healthy for students of any nationality. The College Board makes millions of dollars every year with assessments like the SAT and ACT holding the scores up as proof that certain students have what it takes to excel in college or universities.

However, standardized tests do not assess things like critical thinking or even consistent academic effort. As such, those admitted mostly because of standardized achievement have a tendency to fizzle out in certain fields that require more creativity or originality to succeed.

This is a rarely mentioned side effect of Asian-American’s standardized testing overachievement. And it may help to explain why – despite scoring well on standardized tests – Asians don’t complete college as often as students from other ethnicities.

According to an analysis of the 23-campus California State University System, all Asian subgroups were less likely than whites to complete their degrees in four years. There were roughly 78,000 Asians attending the university system in 2016, yet their four-year completion rate was 3% below that of all students. Only a few subgroups – Japanese and Asian Indians – had four-year completion rates that exceeded the average.

If test scores and admissions were all it took to achieve post secondary success, you’d expect college completion to be shared by Asian-Americans across the board.

In reality, college attainment varies significantly within the Asian community. While more than half of Japanese and Korean Americans (and nearly 3/4 of Asian Indian Americans) age 24 or older had a bachelor’s degree or higher in 2019, the same was true for less than 1/5 of their Laotian, Hmong and Cambodian counterparts.

CONCLUSIONS

Therefore, it is highly suspect when standardized testing apologists point to Asian-American test scores as proof the system is fair and balanced.

First of all, it conflates the achievements of mostly East Asians with all Americans of eastern heritage. Second, it demands more of one minority group to be accepted as equal to a white majority.

If standardized assessments were fair tests of academic achievement or ability, there would be no need for such contrivances. If they really showed who would de best in colleges or universities, that would be borne out in graduation rates.

Instead, a closer look at the data shows just how unfairly discriminatory these tests and this system is. Standardized tests of this sort were invented in America as a way to privilege white Europeans from other ethnic groups, and even after a century of revisions, they still function the same way.

Standardized testing should be abolished in favor of more accurate assessments of learning such as classroom grades. Teachers should be unshackled from the need to cater to the testing companies and allowed to emphasize critical thinking, originality and creativity in the classroom.

After all, these are the skills necessary for the jobs of the future – as well as for students to self actualize into the adults they want to be.

In any case, the standardized testing industry can no longer hide behind the myth of the Asian-American model minority to justify their shady business practices.


 

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


 


 
 


After three decades, it should be achingly clear.

 

Charter schools are a terrible idea. 


 

These types of schools have been around since 1992, a year after Minnesota passed the first law allowing certain public schools to exist under negotiated conditions (or charters). 

 
It works kind of like this. Here are all the rules public schools have to follow in order to be funded by taxpayer dollars – they have to be run by elected school boards, have open records, accept all students from the community, etc. Now here are the tiny set of rules this one particular school has to abide by – it’s charter, if you will.

So there’s one set of rules for authentic public schools and another for each individual charter school.

This means charter schools can be governed by appointed boards of bureaucrats, they don’t have to share their records with the public who are paying the bills, they can even pocket some of that taxpayer money as profit (and in many cases they can still call themselves non-profit). And they don’t even have to accept all students! They can cherrypick whoever is easiest to teach and tell those they rejected that it’s all the result of a lottery – a lottery that they don’t have to share with anyone to prove it was impartial.

 


No wonder the situation has been a disastrous mess! 

Even today they aren’t nationwide. Only 45 states and the District of Columbia have been duped into accepting 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.

WHAT DEREGULATING PUBLIC EDUCATION GETS YOU

 Consider that more than a quarter of charter schools close within 5 years of opening. By year 15, roughly 50% of charter schools close. That’s not a stable model of public education.

Moreover, 1,779 charter schools (37 percent that receive federal grants) never opened in the first place or were quickly shut down. Since 1994, the federal government has spent $4 billion on these types of schools. Think of how much money has been wasted that could have been put to better use in our much more dependable authentic public schools!

According to a 2010 Mathematica Policy Research study funded by the federal government, middle-school students who were selected by lottery to attend charter schools performed no better than their peers who lost out in the lottery and attended nearby public schools. And this was the most rigorous and expensive study of charter school performance commissioned by the US Department of Education to date, yet it found no overall positive benefit for charter schools at all.

None. Nada. Zippo.

In the intervening years, the matter has been studied further with similar results.

A 2016 study found that Texas charter schools had no overall positive impact on test scores and, in fact, had a negative impact on students’ earnings later in life. So if you attended a Texas charter school you probably made less money as an adult than someone who attended an authentic public school.

Even a 2020 study by the charter-friendly Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) found that charter schools do not exceed public schools in most areas of the country. In addition, the study found vast variations in the quality of charter schools – some being better and many being much worse than the norm.

According to a 2018 report by IBM Center Visiting Fellow for Evidence-Based Practices, the things charter schools do that have the best academic outcomes are:

  1. Longer school days or academic years
  2. Zero tolerance and other strict discipline policies associated with rewards and sanctions
  3. Centering the curriculum on improving test scores and test prep.

Not exactly progress and innovation!

And that’s not even getting into how charter schools target children of color, increase segregation and fail to meet the needs of minority children.

WHY ABOLITION?

At this point, any sane person has to at least wonder if we should continue having charter schools at all. 

 
Some folks want to try reform. Let’s fix the rules, they say, so that charter schools are more accountable and less prone to fraud and malfeasance.  

 
However, you can’t reform a system that is at its core inequitable. No matter what you do, charter schools will always play by one set of rules and authentic public schools by another. That is fundamentally unjust.

We need better than just reform – we need abolition

 
Ask yourself: Why are we allowing charter schools in the first place?  

 
Really. 

 
Why SHOULD there be schools paid for with public dollars that don’t have to abide by all the rules?

 

 
If there are too many regulations, let’s look at them one-by-one and decide which ones should go and which should stay. But why are we giving special privileges to some schools and not others?  

 
That’s what’s led to the exact catastrophe we find ourselves in today

 
For me, the question is not whether we should have charter schools or not. It’s a question of how best to get rid of them.

I think the best way is as follows. 

HOW ABOLITION?

 
Many charter schools are private businesses.  


 

They are run by corporations or other private enterprises. In these instances, the schools should be given the choice to stay private or try to transition to the public system. If they choose the former option, they would become authentic private schools.   

 
This would be pretty easy and require no major changes. The charter school could go on exactly as it does now with one exception – it would no longer receive any public money.  


 
 
It would be just another private school subject to the whims of the free market. The major difference is the public would no longer be bankrolling it.

And speaking of business, time to pay up your debts. Now that you’ve become a private school, you should have to pay the public system back for any major assets you acquired during your start-up phase.

If the school bought any real estate, purchased buildings, etc. when it was a charter school, it should have to pay the taxpayers back. You want to be a private business now and abide by your own rules? Fine. We can work on a payment plan to reimburse taxpayers for these assets. You think you can just walk away free and clear? Uh-uh.

However, the biggest change for a charter school going through such a transition would probably be the need to charge a tuition fee now for students attending. That’s what private schools do, after all.

 
Perhaps students could get a school voucher or some kind of scholarship tax credit mumbo jumbo (voucher lite) to help fund tuition. I think that’s a terrible waste of tax dollars, too, not to mention unconstitutional, but that’s an argument for another day

 


TRANSITIONING BACK TO THE PUBLIC SYSTEM

So that takes care of private businesses. Which only leaves those charter schools who deem themselves public enterprises.  

They can try to become authentic public schools (and thus continue to receive taxpayer funding) if they meet certain conditions.

First, they have to start abiding by all those rules they sought to escape when they signed their charter agreements in the first place.

The difficulty of such a transition depends on how much these institutions acted like authentic public schools throughout their existence.

 
Perhaps they have elected school boards and open meetings. Perhaps they run themselves very similarly to an authentic public school. In that case, wonderful! They can pretty much continue to do so… 

 
IF – And I do mean IF – the neighborhood public school board agrees to accept the former charter into the district.  
 

But this time the public gets an actual say whether the charter school gets to exist – unlike how the charter was created at the outset.  

 
Today, charter schools are hardly ever a venture proposed by school boards or the public at large. Very rarely does a group of concerned parents or citizens rise up and demand a charter school in their neighborhood.  


 
These are ventures proposed primarily by outsiders who see an opportunity for themselves. Maybe they have only good intentions and want to meet this or that need that they see going unmet by the authentic neighborhood school. But instead of asking the public’s permission to follow their self-appointed plan, they barge in and force the opening of a charter school with the additional tax burden this often requires. 
 

Now that we’ve abolished the state’s charter school law, the choice goes back to the community. Do you want this former charter school to remain in your district? Do you want to incorporate it into the district? Do you want to continue supporting it with tax dollars so long as it abides by all the rules all the other public schools need follow?  

 
If the answer is yes, then the school can stay. And I think it perfectly fair to require a series of public hearings before any decision is made so that the community can be heard on the issue. 

 
However, unlike when the charter school was opened, there is no longer any state charter approval board to oversee this processes. There will be no rules requiring school districts to approve charter schools unless certain conditions are meant.  

 
Local communities are perfectly capable of making up their own minds without any interference from the state government. If this former charter school really is an asset to the community, the school board will vote to keep it. If not, the board will vote to close it. 

CONCLUSION

 
So that’s it. 

Charter schools are fundamentally unfair as proven by decades of waste, fraud, abuse, and a spotty academic record at best.

The only way to balance the scales and provide taxpayers with a fair return on their investment as well as provide every child with a quality education is to abolish this failed experiment.

I know it may seem impossible now, but it probably seemed just as impossible in the early ‘90s when the charter school project began. Now it’s time to undo that mistake.

If things can go wrong, we can set them right again. It just takes rational people of conscience to fight for it.

I invite you to join me and become a charter school abolitionist.


 

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When Students Cheat, They Only Hurt Themselves 

 
 
Paolo invited me to his desk yesterday.  


 
“Mr. Singer, take a look at this,” he said and handed me a scrap of paper with a few hastily scribbled lines of poetry on it.  


 
“What do you think?” he said and smiled up at me hopefully.  
 


 
I squinted at the page and said slowly, “I think it’s wonderful. The use of assonance in these lines is perfect…” 


 
And his smile matured into a grin, until… 


 
“…if only Edgar Allan Poe hadn’t already written them.” 


 
Cheating is a part of school.  


 
It’s probably always been.  


 
Students copy off of other students, they take quotes from books without giving the author credit, they make crib sheets to consult during the test. 


 
But since technology has pervaded nearly every aspect of our classrooms, cheating has skyrocketed


 
Just ask the students. 


 
According to a survey of 70,000 high school students conducted between 2002 and 2015 across the United States, 95 percent admitted to cheating in one way or another, and 58 percent admitted to plagiarizing papers outright.

According to a 2012 Josephson Institute’s Center for Youth Ethics report, nearly 3/4 of high schoolers said they’d copied a friends’ homework, and more than half said they’d cheated on a test.


It’s hard to blame them. These days there are few things cheaper than information.

Nearly every student – no matter how impoverished – has a smartphone. And even if they don’t, districts supply them with virtually the same features in tablets or laptops. Like never before, students can connect to the Internet anywhere, anytime, and they don’t even have to type in a question – they can simply ask Alexa or Siri.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen children sit in front of shelves stuffed to bursting with dictionaries as they clandestinely whisper into their phones asking how to spell certain words.

Mountains of studies show that technology has made cheating in school easier, increasingly convenient, and more difficult to detect. So much so that many students don’t even consider digital plagiarism to be plagiarism.

Current generations practically were raised on social media and thus have a warped sense of intellectual property. Watching TikTok parody videos, reposting images on Instagram, and repurposing memes on Facebook or Twitter have eroded their sense of what constitutes intellectual property and what counts as original work.

Going back to Paolo, I don’t think he consciously tried to pass off Poe’s poetry as his own. He was trying to complete an assignment using assonance (repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words) in a poem.

He probably asked his district-issued iPad for examples and was directed to a snippet from Poe’s “The Bells.” So he copied it down, changing a word here and there and thought he had created something new.

It wasn’t word-for-word. It was just very close. He didn’t realize that such an exact approximation of an iconic verse would be so obvious.

And it was my understanding – knowing the student, judging his reaction to being caught, and being able to piece together how this act of plagiarism took place – that informed my reaction.

I explained to him that he needed to go further a field – to create his own lines that might be inspired but more distinct from Poe’s. And he did.

This wasn’t the end product; it was a bump in the road.

However, not all cheating is so forgivable.

There are many cases where students know exactly what they’re doing and simply don’t care or feel the risk is worth the reward.

A study from 2021 published in the International Journal for Educational Integrity concluded that students’ emotions and attitudes toward assignments have a lot to do with whether they engage in purposeful cheating.

Students who feel sad, distressed or other negative emotions tend to be more open to plagiarism than those who feel more positive. In fact, one can use student’s negative emotions to predict the chances that they’ll cheat on assignments, according to this research.

The fact that so many aspects of modern day curriculum focus on standardized testing and teaching to the test also factors into the equation.

Students have admitted that drill-and-kill assignments, testing look-a-likes, etc. are seen as worthless and thus they are more prone to cheating on them.

Students will perpetrate fraud even on assignments that they see as valuable, but they are much more likely to do so on standardized curriculum – the kind policymakers and many administrators are increasingly pressuring districts and teachers to include in the classroom.

Educators are under incredible pressure to include the most boring and useless of skills in their lessons – not how to think critically, read thoughtfully or write expressively, but how to take this or that assessment. Then when students rebel by cheating, teachers are admonished to detect it at every corner but not to punish students too severely.

Thus we create an infinite loop of academic dishonesty. And no matter what happens, it’s the teacher’s fault.

The way I look at it, teachers should take steps to stop cheating in the classroom, but without administrative support, they can only go so far. If there aren’t academic consequences for cheating, administrators have tacitly accepted the behavior regardless of what teachers do in the classroom. If there are no consequence – no adequate disincentive – cheating is normalized regardless of the words written in the student handbook.

I’m not saying there shouldn’t be grace and understanding, but there need to be consequences, too. Students feel more free to be authentic and original when they are immersed in a school culture where authenticity is valued over fraud.

After all, even in circumstances where teachers have full support, they can’t catch everything. And I think that’s okay.

Who is most harmed when students cheat? It is not a victimless crime. When students engage in such behavior, they aren’t really hurting anyone other than themselves.

Think about it.

You’re a student in school ostensibly here to learn. If you cheat on an assignment (a valuable assignment) you’re just stopping yourself from achieving the intended learning.

You’re limiting your own knowledge, your own skills and abilities. Instead of grasping how to write and read critically, for instance, you get the grade without the learning.


It would be like going to the doctor and presenting fake bloodwork. That’s not going to harm the physician – it’s going to hurt the patient.

It’s the same for accidental and purposeful cheating.

So what can we do about it?

1) Perhaps the most important thing to discourage the unintentional variety is to teach kids what it is – especially with relation to technology.

Districts have to shift from embracing any technology as a given to being technologically literate. EdTech is like the Internet – a sewer. There’s way more garbage in there than treasure. If the district can’t control its own technosphere, it’s best not to have one at all. Be purposeful about the kinds of hardware and software you allow, and actively teach students how to use it.

A 15-minute crash course once every four to eight years is not enough. At minimum computer etiquette and digital proficiency should be an annual semester course, because students who cannot navigate the new media will be forever slaves to it.

However, that’s only half of the solution.

2) The best way to discourage purposeful cheating is to present students with meaningful work.

If kids actually want to learn what you’re teaching, they’ll be less inclined to fake their way through it.

Of course, this can only be truly effective when educators are allowed a voice in their own curriculum, their expertise is valued, and they are free to determine how best to go about their jobs. But let’s be honest – that’s not going to happen anytime soon.

3) Focus on process more than product.

For example, when my students write an essay, I never give them the prompt and then wait to see the results. We do prewriting together that needs to be approved before they can even begin their first drafts. We discuss it every step of the way until they submit it for a grade – and if it still has issues, I simply don’t accept it. I hand it back with suggestions for changes again and again until it meets the agreed upon standard.

That makes cheating much harder to do. It also puts learning – the journey from point A to B – at the forefront rather than coming up with something arbitrary.

4) Finally, relationships are the bedrock of responsibility.

Nothing in my class is high stakes.

If a student messes up today, there’s always tomorrow. All assignments are accepted late up to a point. All tests can be retaken. Everyone gets another chance to succeed.

It’s a huge burden on me, the teacher, but I think it’s worth it to extend a little grace to students. It’s worth it demonstrating that I value them over their work.

In teaching, relationships are everything, and you’re less likely to get purposeful cheating from students who respect you and whom you respect.

I’m not saying this is perfect or that I have all the answers. But in an age where everyone seems worried about academic integrity without any concern for academic freedom, it’s important to put your priorities front and center.

Cheating may never go away entirely, but at least we can be honest about why it happens and who it hurts.


 

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Finally! PA Court Rules Unfair School Funding is Unconstitutional! 

Welcome to Pennsylvania, where a common-sense judgement takes 8 years in court


 

And regressive Republicans respond with more illogical nonsense. 

 
A judge in Commonwealth Court finally ruled this week that the state’s school funding system violates the state constitution.  

 
It took school districts, parents, and advocacy groups banding together to file the lawsuit back in 2014, but it was really kind of a no-brainer. 

It basically comes down to whether you can provide a mountain of funding to rich kids while throwing a few pennies at poor kids.

Spoiler alert: You can’t.

The reason? The state Constitution guarantees a “thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the Commonwealth” – and cake for rich kids while poor kids get crumbs just isn’t thorough or efficient or meets the needs of the Commonwealth.

The problem is that the state funds schools based heavily on local taxes – so rich neighborhoods can afford to pile on the monetary support while poor ones do the best they can but fall far short of their wealthier counterparts.

If the state paid more of the cost of educating Commonwealth children, this would be less of an issue. But Pennsylvania is 43rd in the country when it comes to the share of revenue for local school districts that it pays.

The result is one of the biggest spending gaps between rich and poor kids in the nation.  

Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer, a Republican, ruled that this was discrimination. In short

“…the Pennsylvania Constitution imposes upon Respondents an obligation to provide a system of public education that does not discriminate against students based on the level of income and value of taxable property in their school districts… 

The disparity among school districts with high property values and incomes and school districts with low property values and incomes is not justified by any compelling government interest nor is it rationally related to any legitimate government objective…

[Therefore] Petitioners and students attending low wealth districts are being deprived of equal protection of law.” 


 
Unfortunately, no mention was made in the nearly 800-page ruling of exactly how to fix the problem. 

The trial began in November 2021 and lasted more than three months. You’d think the judge had time to toss off a line or two about what to do next, maybe that it’s up to the state to take up the slack or something.  


 
But no. 


 
Which leaves room for right wing creeps like the Commonwealth Foundation to crawl out from under a rock and give their own nonsense solution.


 
Enter Nathan Benefield, senior vice president of the Harrisburg based conservative and libertarian think tank that pushes for the destruction of any common good – especially public schools


 
Benefield wrote a response to the ruling praising it for leaving the legislature and executive branch to find a solution, rather than “mandating more money to a broken system.” 

Um, Benefield? Buddy? It’s broken mostly because we haven’t paid to keep it in good repair.

But he goes on…

“The only way to ensure that ‘every student receives a meaningful opportunity’ is for education funding to follow the child. Students that are trapped in their zip-code assigned school — especially in low-income and minority communities — often have no alternatives when their academic or social needs are unmet.” 

So the solution to not having enough money is more choice!?

I can’t afford to buy breakfast. Having a choice between raisin bran and pancakes won’t make a difference. I CAN’T AFFORD EITHER ONE!!!!

If every district received fair funding, it wouldn’t matter what your zip code is anymore. That’s the whole freaking point!

But look for neofacists and libertools to start spouting this kind of rhetoric at every turn now that they can’t hide behind the old excuse that it’s somehow fair to steal poor kids lunch money and give it to rich kids.

The next step is not entirely clear.

Some think it likely that the state will appeal the decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. 

However, they would have a pretty weak case if they did, said Maura McInerney, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

“The record is very, very clear that local school districts are not adequately resourced,” she said. “I think it would be extremely difficult to be successful on appeal.” 

Judge Jubilerer wrote in her ruling that she hoped everyone would work together now to find a solution:

“The Court is in uncharted territory with this landmark case. Therefore, it seems only reasonable to allow Respondents, comprised of the Executive and Legislative branches of government and administrative agencies with expertise in the field of education, the first opportunity, in conjunction with Petitioners, to devise a plan to address the constitutional deficiencies identified herein.” 

It may sound naive, but it’s happened in other states – specifically New York and New Jersey. 

A suit filed in 2014 in New York argued that the state never fully funded a 2007 Foundation Aid program. The program was supposed to consider district wealth and student need in order to create an equitable distribution of state funding. 

The Empire State settled in 2021 and is now required to phase-in full funding of Foundation Aid by the 2024 budget. 

New Jersey tackled the issue way back in 1981. A state court ruled officials had to provide adequate K-12 foundational funding, universal preschool and at-risk programs. 

This made New Jersey the first state to mandate early education. The state also undertook the most extensive construction program in the country to improve the quality of school buildings in impoverished neighborhoods, according to the Education Law Center. 

Could such sweeping reforms be coming to the Keystone state?

“For years, we have defunded our public schools at the expense of our students,” said state Sen. Lindsey Williams (D- 38th district), who is the minority chair of the PA Senate education committee. “[The ruling] is game-changing for our students across the Commonwealth.” 

Sen. Vincent Hughes of Philadelphia, the ranking Democrat on the state Senate’s Appropriations Committee, said the state can afford a big boost in aid to the poorest schools right now because we have billions of surplus dollars in the bank. 

This is exactly what is needed.

During the trial, plaintiffs presented evidence that schools are underfunded by $4.6 billion, an estimate that they said does not account for gaps in spending on special education, school buildings and other facilities. 

 Some organizations like PA Schools Work are calling on legislators to act now by adding approximately $4 billion in Basic Education Funding. They even suggest the increase be at the rate of one billion per year over the next four years to make it more feasible. Finally, they propose this money be distributed through the Fair Funding Formula and the Level Up supplement so that it is more equitably distributed to districts in need.

To make matters even more complicated, the state uses an “outdated” formula to calculate how to allocate school funding.  

The legislature developed a new formula based on enrollment numbers and how much it costs to educate students who are living in poverty, English language learners, or have an Individualized Education Plan (IEP).  However, a large chunk of money isn’t distributed using that new formula.

The way I see it, the Commonwealth has a lot of education funding issues to fix.

Hopefully, this ruling finally means we’ve stopped arguing over whether a problem exists and can start focusing on how to solve it.

That, itself, would be a huge victory!


 

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

There’s plenty of fun to be had if you go to the Waterfront in Homestead, Pennsylvania.

There’s a Dave and Busters, Primate Bros, and even an AMC Loews’s multiplex movie theater.

But right across from the Barnes and Noble is a building with a neon green sign advertising its tenant – Commonwealth Charter Academy (CCA).

This is the newest satellite office of the biggest cyber charter school network in the entire state! One of 51 locations statewide.

These are not your typical brick-and-mortar charter schools. They’re remote schools where students are taught at a distance via computer.

Like other charters, they’re still publicly financed, often privately run, and free from most safety precautions that ensure kids get a quality education at authentic public schools – things like being run by elected school boards, requiring entirely certified teachers, etc. But cyber charters don’t have to house children during the school day. They just need computers and Internet access.

Unfortunately, since Minnesota passed the first charter school law in 1991, they have 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 14 cyber charters – and roughly 21,000 attend CCA!

Who would have thunk it?

Sometime since the deal was signed in 2021, the mega giant headquartered in Harrisburg opened a luxury charter school office during the Covid pandemic right here south of Pittsburgh – by Starbucks and the Venetian Spa!

Oh, sure! There’s an authentic public school in this neighborhood, too, 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!

According to Shannon Construction, the 62,000 sqft. space converted from a former Macy’s Department Store has:

“administrative offices, conference rooms, seminar areas, production labs and live session rooms. Some features include state of the art exterior lighting and signage, high-quality audio/visual and security equipment and 52 new perimeter windows to allow for ample natural lighting. The interior is complete with custom wall graphics, acoustical panels, wood plank ceilings, a fireplace and a Techworks room that provides users with a full digital experience.”

Wow! We paid for that!

It’s hard to imagine why a glorified office building where students don’t attend school needs to be so fancy. Or why it needs to be located on such prime real estate. With such high rents. On the public dime.

I teach at Steel Valley Middle School nestled among residential homes on top of the hill. There’s no Panera nearby, but there is Munhall MiniMart just up the street.

We have no wood plank ceilings or Techworks rooms, but my classroom has fluorescent lights, a wipe board that doesn’t fully erase, wobbly tables and chairs, and no windows.

CCA doesn’t sound like a school. It sounds like a tech company. And I guess it kind of is.

The K-12 cyber network’s Homestead building isn’t designed for students – it’s designed for executives. The people who make the big bucks work here – though maybe there are a few teachers holed up here and there behind computers typing away to their students through screens across the state.

Much of the responsibility for these students doesn’t seem to rest with teachers. It belongs to their “learning coaches,” adults responsible for assisting kids at home – usually parents or guardians.

According to CCA’s Website, learning coaches are expected to spend five hours each school day helping elementary students with coursework and monitoring lessons, and between two and three hours a day with students in middle school.  

Why are we paying CCA again?

And how much are we paying them?

It turns out the so-called non-profit business, which in 2020 posted almost $39 million in net income, gets at least $10,000 per student. So given its enrollment figures, that’s at least $210 million a year – not counting additional money some districts have to provide. For each child from a district that enrolls in a cyber charter, the sending district pays the cyber a rate based on what the district spends on average per pupil – one rate for students in regular education and another for students with disabilities. This means that tuition rates paid to a particular cyber school can be vastly different.  

But since online charters have far lower operating costs than brick-and-mortar schools of any stripe, we end up overpaying them nearly every time.

I guess that’s why CCA has enough money to pay $19 million on marketing from 2019 – 2021, including getting a promotional TV spot in a Thanksgiving Parade, according to Education Voters of Pennsylvania.

CCA spends millions of dollars each school year on advertising. For example, in its 2018-19 IRS Form 990, a required disclosure for all nonprofits, CCA reported that it paid $8.5 million to Bravo Group, an advertising, marketing, and lobbying firm.  

CCA is sitting on so much extra money, it can afford to offer families cash reimbursements of $200 for monthly field trips.

But, of course, these trips aren’t always of much 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.

Can you imagine taking your kids to an expensive theme park, or going to see an NFL game, or seeing Motley Crue play “Shout at the Devil” on the public dime?

Does that sound nice? Absolutely.

But is it fair to all the other schools in the state starving for enough money just to keep the lights on? Is it fair to kids in extra large classes, without new textbooks, and dealing with mold in the bathrooms?

Moreover, is it a good learning strategy to get kids to sit in front of a computer for 30 days with the promise of a field trip at the end of the month?

One thing’s for sure – it doesn’t seem to be getting academic results. CCA’s 4th and 8th grade reading scores in 2018-19, for example, were the worst in the state. 

Only 28.8% of CCA students achieved proficiency on English Language Arts and Math PSSA exams on a two-year, combined basis, according to state Department of Education data. The school’s growth score was negative – so they actually regressed academically. They would have done better not to have even gone to school! 

Moreover, the school’s graduation rate falls well below statewide averages and state goals. Its four-year cohort graduation rate is 53%; its five-year rate is 67%; and its six-year rate is 70%. For the 2018-19 school year, more than 10% of CCA students dropped out. That’s about twice as many as the average rate for charter schools and seven times as many as the average rate for authentic public school districts.

 

In short, the school’s performance ranks among the bottom 5% of schools statewide.

In the commonwealth, cyber charters were first allowed in 2002. They are authorized by the state Department of Education and operate statewide.

Which begs the question – has the state been doing its job to hold this cyber charter network accountable? According to the Times Tribune, CCA hasn’t been audited by the state in a decade, though the school disputes this fact and a press release claimed it has independent audits.

I don’t know about you, but as a teacher, parent and taxpayer in the Commonwealth, none of this makes me happy.

The best I can do is come down to the Waterfront and see the result of all this tax money – mine and yours – in a beautiful new building that isn’t doing anything to help students learn.

If you want an even closer look inside CCA, indeed.com has you covered. The site allowed employees or former employees of companies to review their places of work.

While there were a few reviews that were entirely positive of CCA schools across the state, the overwhelming majority were incredibly negative.

Take an unfiltered look at the inside of CCA:


Stressful, not flexible  

Teacher (Current Employee) – Pittsburgh, PA – September 24, 2022 

CCA has changed for staff. They are no longer flexible and change requirements and hours with no notice. Staff need to read the administration’s mind to determine the new rules and regulations that changed continually. Work life balance is a struggle with this school.  

I’d pass on this one. 

High School Special Education Teacher (Former Employee) – Harrisburg, PA – December 2, 2022 

CCA started out as a great place to work. Unfortunately, it quickly went down hill. Management had little spies that taught among us and reported back. I felt like I was in grade school all over again. The number of students on any given caseload is 60+ students. It was almost impossible to progress monitor, make phone calls, and complete all necessary paperwork on time. The expectation was to work 12 hour days as well as nights and weekends. No life for you. As time went on management became very top heavy. If you had a target on your back you might as well hang it up. They don’t really help you to improve even though they say they do. Burn out comes quickly and upper management could careless. Professionalism does not exist in this place especially from upper management. CCA does not support you as a teacher. You can easily be replaced and they will. 
Pros 
Flexible Schedule 
Cons 

Everything else….Management, Caseload numbers, Professionalism, etc. 

2 Stars

Teacher (Current Employee) – Pennsylvania – October 12, 2022 

What is the best part of working at the company?
Teaching students and coworkers. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Middle and upper management lack of communication, lack of flexibility, low pay.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Not healthy. Upper management claims to listen but they don’t implement any suggestions. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
8-4 pm teaching, phone calls, grades, etc. 

Poor communication and lack of professionalism  

Administrative Assistant (Former Employee) – Harrisburg, PA – August 9, 2022 

Upper management at CCA is unprofessional, some downright rude, and has extremely poor communication. No training or onboarding process, upper management doesn’t seem to know or care what most employees do on a day to day basis, and the environment is unhealthy both physically and mentally. Disappointing that when concerns were even expressed to the CEO, no response was even given at all. There seems to me a mindset that if given bonus money; $1,00 to $5,000 taxed money, periodically, that everything is great, which is not the case and it doesn’t reflect anything other than a means to disperse unused profits, especially since it’s been given to employees regardless of their length of employment or job performance. 
CCA is lacking integrity and are not what they claim to be in media advertising or to parents.  

Here is my view 

Administrative Assistant (Current Employee) – Allentown, PA – July 5, 2022 

“Equality” is not something that is known for the staff at this company. If you are not in the main office or a teacher you are treated like the “red headed step child”. They care more about money than making sure their staff is financially or mentally taken care of.  
Cons 
Pay, Flexibility 

 

A changing company/school that supports family. 

Family Mentor (Former Employee) – Harrisburg, PA – March 5, 2022 

This position can be fun but also compromising . You can be promised one area then it be changed to an impossible location. Taking too much time to be worth the pay. When location is favorable then the job is great. 

No Work Life Balance 

Teacher (Current Employee) – Harrisburg, PA – February 13, 2022 

Great benefits, but at the cost of your sanity and peace. No work life balance. A constant push for in office/ in person during a Pandemic. If you’re single with no kids and no life this is a great fit.  
Pros 
Benefits and shiny buildings 
Cons 

Literally no life. 

My manger changes 5 times in 6 months.  

Success coach (Former Employee) – Harrisburg, PA – December 16, 2021 

The new managers don’t know anything but are supposed to be your supervisor. You don’t get paid when the kids aren’t there so the job is like part time pay.  
Pros 
Benefits are amazing! 
Cons 
No advancement, very little direction. 

 

Not a good company to work for  

Teacher (Former Employee) – Homestead, PA – August 20, 2021 

Management says one thing and does another thing. Too many managers that don’t communicate with employees very well. Not understanding when personal issues arise  
Pros 
Great technology 
Cons 
Too many chiefs not enough Indians 

Not worth it 

Accounting Clerk (Former Employee) – Harrisburg, PA – March 4, 2021 

Never felt comfortable with coworkers from day one. Also management was very unpleasant and spent way more time than necessary watching employees at their desks. They had seriously ridiculous expectations on performance after only a few weeks on the job. It was expected that I would just know how to do something I had just been trained on and do that task perfectly. Not worth the stress and anxiety it caused. 
Pros 
Great benefits 
Cons 
Toxic work environment 

Collaboration but inconsistent management, disjointed and unqualified leadership, unprofessional behavior, no training, inappropriate expectations 

Teacher (Former Employee) – Pennsylvania – December 19, 2020 

Sounds and looks much better to work there than to actually work there. Stressful, lack of communication, no consistency, lack of professionalism, focus on avoiding legal issues is driving force, facade of supportive atmosphere and family like environment. Work life balance is zero.  
Pros 
Remote 
Cons 
Totally inconsistent and poor leadership 

Authentic Leadership Is Nonexistent at CCA 

Career Facilitation Coordinator (Former Employee) – Harrisburg, PA – June 29, 2020 

CCA cannot be great under current leadership. During my time there, it became evident that students are not at the center of this organization, but instead, the selfish interests of senior leadership prevails (note: I use the term leadership loosely). Among many things, the culture of micromanagement is toxic, resulting in unbelievably high turnover in certain positions. In a functional organization, senior leadership would work to mitigate this issue. Here, matters such as this are swept under the rug. For whatever reason, certain “Directors” are protected and there is no accountability. Professionals are not treated as such and their expertise is grossly undervalued. HR is not objective and gossipy…especially at the senior level, which is extremely unprofessional to say the least. If you’re searching for an innovative and inclusive organization which promotes growth and cohesion, KEEP LOOKING. If you decide to interview, do your best to find out the history of your position. If offered a position, run far and fast. 
Pros 
Nice building 
Cons 
Zero accountability, culture of nepotism, inauthentic leaders 

Save yourself the agony 

Unlisted (Former Employee) – Harrisburg, PA – April 19, 2020 

Horrible place to work, bad management, inadequate pay. There is no flexibility and employees are not valued at all. Every day of my time there was miserable. 
Pros 
None 
Cons 
Everything 

Teachers are micromanaged and required to complete tasks that do not improve students’ education. 

Teacher (Current Employee) – Pennsylvania – February 22, 2020 

The school’s administration is very top-heavy. Teachers’ salaries are low compared to peers in brick and mortar schools. Workload among teachers is not fairly distributed. Teachers are required to award grades to students that do not reflect their learning. Students are awarded up to 35% of their grades for ‘participation’ that does not assure that actual learning took place. 

The hardest part of the job is not being able to engage the many students who use the cyber-school setting to avoid going to school. The administration does not put adequate resources to removing these students from the school. 

 

Poor organizational structure doesn’t support teachers 

Teacher (Former Employee) – Harrisburg, PA – February 17, 2020 

Teachers aren’t valued much. Young and inexperienced administrators hand picked if they are yes-men to upper administrators push teachers to the limit. Upper administration has alternative agendas, and the ‘school’ is a company to them. Office cubes are loud and not conducive to work. 

Stressful, not flexible  

Teacher (Current Employee) – Pittsburgh, PA – September 24, 2022 

CCA has changed for staff. They are no longer flexible and change requirements and hours with no notice. Staff need to read the administration’s mind to determine the new rules and regulations that changed continually. Work life balance is a struggle with this school.  

Little Guidance From School 

Instructional Assistant (Former Employee) – Ligonier, PA – July 7, 2019 

I worked as an in-home IA with a special needs student. There was almost no guidance from the school as far as coursework, deadlines, etc. All of my student’s goals came from the BCBA, and the school had very little to offer in terms of direction. The first paycheck came two months late, and there were no benefits involved , as it was an independent contractor position. On the plus side, though, with the relaxed approaches to education, it was quite easy to allow the student to work on subjects that interested him, and it was nice to have that kind of independence when it came to planning the school days. 
Pros 
Flexibility, relaxed environment, student home-based options, pay. 
Cons 
Little guidance, hard to contact the school, communication in general. 

Once Upon a Time, CCA was a Wonderful Company But Now…. 

Teacher (Former Employee) – Harrisburg, PA – June 8, 2019 

When I started at CCA back in 2009, the CEO was Dennis Tulli. He was a wonderful leader who truly cared not only about the students & their families but also every employee who worked for him. He made sure his staff was compensated fairly and provided free health care benefits (no monthly premium) for teachers & their families. Providing CCA met their yearly goals, generous monetary bonuses were given to all employees in September. When Dr. Tulli left and Dr. Flurrie took over, the culture slowly began to change. More and more responsibilities were added to all employees but especially teachers w/o any duties being removed. Night & weekend hours became mandatory but again, there was no compensation. Many veteran teachers, who were making a decent yearly salary, were forced out so they could be replaced by younger less experienced teachers at half the salary. Raises became smaller, w/the exception of this CEO & his senior leadership team, and bonuses all but disappeared. Dr. Flurrie made it known that all employees were replaceable so the theme became “be grateful you’ve got a job here”. Over a 2 year time frame, the culture slowly changed from a democracy, where you could voice your concerns or ideas and know you would be heard, to a micromanaged dictatorship, run from the top down. If you are an older woman, do not expect any advancement opportunities. This CEO primarily gives advancement opportunities to men and young, attractive women. Under Dr. Tulli and for the first year under Dr. Flurrie, there was very little turnover. Once Dr. Flurrie’s “honeymoon” period was over as a CEO, true colors began to show. From his second year to now, the turnover rate has continued to consistently increase. Keeping special education teachers has become a real challenge. We used to be able to work from home but the majority of those positions have been removed so plan to report to an office everyday. Bottom line, if you think CCA is better a option than the traditional brick/mortar schools, you are mistaken. This CEO has eliminated any incentives to choose this company over the traditional public school. –  
Pros 
New state-of-the-art building, travel expenses reimbursed, coworkers are generally very friendly/helpful people 
Cons 
CEO’s ever increasing ego, smothered by micromanaging administrators, no more work from home/bonuses, low salaries/negligible raises 

Stressful environment 

Success Coach Coordinator (Former Employee) – Philadelphia, PA – December 27, 2018 

This was a stressful and uninviting environment. No room for advancement. Would not recommend others to a position with this community. Management upgrades are needed. 

Workplace drone 

Teacher (Current Employee) – Harrisburg, PA – October 24, 2018 

As the company continues to grow, so does the ego of the CEO and management. Little thought is considered for the professional teaching staff and all teachers are “replaceable.” Don’t even ask for a work from home day. I miss the old management style of Connections Academy. 

Productive and great team atmosphere 

Teacher (Former Employee) – Harrisburg, PA – March 13, 2018 

CCA is a growing school but be very careful as they grow what do they forget? The special education and general ed caseloads are so high but the school will not increase staff as they leave. 
Pros 
Health insurance, team atmosphere with team 
Cons 
Micro managed every step, no voice, top down management, non elected school board 

Sucks the life out of you

Teacher (Former Employee) – PA – February 3, 2018
Coworkers were wonderful, but the company is not run well and is frustrating and takes advantage of their workers. The highest levels of management are unaware of what the underlings are doing and don’t send a message that employees are valued.

Pros

Collaborrating with coworkers, supporting one another.

Cons

The worst most incompetent employees are the ones who get promoted.

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