Must see video of Paul Wellstone on NCLB on 10th anniversary of his death

Paul Wellstone on NCLB, one of only ten Senators who voted against the law.  On the 10th anniversary of this great hero's death.

Among his eloquent points: "test scores don't lead to smaller class size."

My unvideotaped debate with DOE's Suransky re NCLB, testing, and NYC's dismal results

On Wednesday, September 15, I was invited to New York Law School to debate Shael Suransky, NYC's Deputy Chancellor for Accountability, about NCLB and the negative effects of high stakes accountability systems.

I also took the opportunity to rebut the claims of impressive progress in student achievement in NYC that DOE continues to make, even after the state test score bubble has burst, and to point out the many errors in Chancellor Klein's written statements concerning this issue.

Unfortunately, NY Law School did not allow Lindsey Christ of NY1 or Norm Scott of Education Notes to videotape the event, reportedly because of pressure from DOE.

Lindsey was quite annoyed, and said she had never been barred from taping any such forum, either at NYU, Columbia, the New School, CUNY or SUNY.

For more on what transpired, you can see Norm Scott's accounts here and here, and the email exchange between Lindsey, the very testy VP for PR at NY Law School, and me.

As many people have asked for it, I am posting my powerpoint here, part 1 and part II. If you would like me to present it to your organization, please email me at classsizematters@gmail.com

-- Leonie Haimson, Executive Director, Class Size Matters

An even more punitive approach for our poorest schools, but with a nicer name?

Today’s article in the NY Times on Obama’s plan to revamp NCLB might fool the uninitiated that the administration’s proposals will help solve the myriad problems that NCLB helped create – too many schools labeled as failing, too much emphasis on standardized testing, and the use of harsh accountability measures that hurt rather than helped improve learning conditions at our public schools:

The proposals would require states to use annual tests and other indicators to divide the nation’s nearly 100,000 public schools into several groups: some 10,000 to 15,000 high-performing schools that could receive rewards or recognition; some 10,000 failing or struggling schools requiring varying degrees of vigorous state intervention; about 5,000 schools that would be required to narrow unacceptably wide achievement gaps; and perhaps 70,000 or so schools in the middle that would be encouraged to figure out on their own how to improve.

That clears it up. The Washington Post and AP stories are a bit more understandable.

Rather than 100% student proficiency, the new proposal would have as its goal “college readiness” (as taken from the current emphasis of the Gates Foundation.) Schools and teachers would be evaluated on the basis of test score gains rather than absolute standards.

Here, from the AP story is the “spin” from the administration, of a supposedly less punitive approach:

In the proposed dismantling of the No Child Left Behind law, education officials would move away from punishing schools that don't meet benchmarks and focus on rewarding schools for progress, particularly with poor and minority students.

Yet what the administration is really proposing is even more punitive, to expand the pro-privatization and destabilizing policies represented in its "Race to the Top" slush fund, including school closures, charter takeovers, and/or supposed “turnaround models”, where at least half the staff would be fired, to all of the nation’s lowest performing schools, or else risk having their Title one funds being withheld:

…the bottom 5 percent of schools would be forced to use the department’s four turnaround models that now govern the Title I School Improvement Grant program. The next-lowest 5 percent would be on a “warning” list and be required to take action using research-based interventions, although the department would not mandate one of the four turnaround models.

The Title one program was originally created to try to equalize funding for poor schools. But these proposals, if adopted, would apparently be provided only to those schools that put into place the administration’s heavy-handed “reforms”. Again, here is the AP summary:

…. for the first time in 45 years, the White House is proposing a $4 billion increase in federal education spending, most of which would go to increase the competition among states for grant money and move away from formula-based funding.

Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post accurately portrays the proposed changes this way:

The lowest achieving 5 percent of schools in every state will be punished even harder than under NCLB, according to my colleague Nick Anderson, who reported about the Obama plan today….. Obama today promised to treat teachers “like the professionals they are.” What Obama and Duncan have in store for teachers makes one wonder just how they think professional teachers should actually be treated.

….. standardized test scores of students [would be linked] to teacher performance evaluations and pay. That means that all of the other factors that might go into a student’s test score — whether they are tired, or hungry, or can’t see well, or have a toothache, or were distracted in class, or have test anxiety, etc. — don’t actually matter.

None of the distorting effects of basing teacher or school evaluation on standardized test scores alone will diminish under this system, even if they are now “value-added” measures, and in fact, would likely grow even more extreme, especially for our neediest schools.

Ignored are the significant methodological problems of fairly basing evaluations on value-added test scores, as pointed out by the National Academy of Sciences and other experts, who have warned of the unreliability of such measures, and their potentially damaging consequences.

In apparent response to complaints that the overemphasis on scores in reading and math in NCLB has driven out other parts of the curriculum, according to the Times,“the administration says it will allow states to test subjects other than math and reading and use scores on those tests to rate their schools, though it will not require states to do so.”

That’s generous of them.

Nothing here is likely to achieve the goals that the administration supposedly has to attract experienced, quality teachers to work in our lowest performing schools; in fact, they would be likely to leave in droves, given the increased risks of being judged on unreliable test score gains and/or losing their jobs.

What else? Oh, yes, Duncan will change the name of the program:

“Duncan has said the name No Child Left Behind will be dropped because it is associated with a harsh law that punishes schools for not reaching benchmarks even if they've made big gains. He said the administration will work with Congress to come up with a new name.”

Any nominations for a new name, folks?

Diane Ravitch: No Child Left Behind Has Left US Schools with Legacy of “Institutionalized Fraud”

Check out this segment from "Democracy Now" for a great, extended interview of Diane Ravitch, education scholar and former Asst. Secretary of Education, by Juan Gonzalez, two of our favorite people here in NYC; here is a transcript.

Diane provides the most incisive critique of No Children Left Behind, and its even more destructive incarnation in the Obama administration's "Race to the Top" program, in her new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. In this interview, she explains why the administration's emphasis on charter school expansion and test-based accountability threatens to undermine public education and is an invitation to institutionalized fraud.

The Future of NYC Public Education under Mayoral Control: On View Now in England

Several weeks ago, I wrote about the twenty-year history of the England’s standardized national exam system, called Sats, and how its present unhappy state could well be a predictor of the future of NCLB in the U.S. generally and the future of education in NYC public schools specifically.

The picture is an ugly one, with teachers and principals throughout the country widely critical of the exams due to the pressure they place on students, resulting in a persistent loss of interest in reading or learning because of endless drill and test preparation, excessive time devoted to teaching to the test, the undue narrowing of the curriculum, and other generally anti-educational consequences.

In effect, teachers and principals have gone to war against their own government, threatening to boycott all aspects of next year’s exams if they are not abolished.

Last month, England’s National Union of Teachers, the country’s largest, voted overwhelmingly to boycott next year’s Sats exams. Now, on May 2, the National Association of Headteachers (NAHT), roughly equivalent to a national principals’ union, took the unprecedented step of overwhelmingly voting (94 percent in favor) to join the teachers’ planned boycott of next year’s exams, even though they will be in direct violation of national law by doing so. The two unions’ boycotts signify that they are refusing involvement in all aspects of England’s national exams: preparation, administration, invigilating (proctoring), and grading.

It’s taken twenty years for things in England to reach the point of open rebellion by the teachers’ and principals’ unions against their country’s system of standardized exams, a system not significantly different from the one Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein wield with such authoritarian impunity to justify their unilateral school closings and other policy whims. The arguments in England are identical to those we routinely hear in New York from outspoken teachers as well as parent leaders and education advocates.

President Obama and Education Secretary Duncan, are you paying attention to the devastating effect these exams are having on public education in England?

Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein, are you aware of the damage such extreme emphasis on standardized exam performance has caused to England’s educational system and the negative impacts it has had on that country’s children?

New Yorkers, are you prepared to let your children suffer the consequences of four (or more) years of mayoral control under Mayor-for-life Bloomberg and Chancellor-for-life Klein?

All you have to do is look at the nightmare that has become England’s educational system to see what New York City’s public education system will look like in a few more years (unless, of course, the mayor succeeds in privatizing and charterizing it first, in which case we’ll have simply traded one nightmare for another). -- Steve Koss

Advice for Duncan in the WaPost: parents need not apply

Check out Diane Ravitch’s succinct advice to Arne Duncan, the soon-to-be Secretary of Education, in yesterday’s Washington Post, recommending that he scrap NCLB. Here is an excerpt:

“The law's remedies don't work. The law's sanctions don't work. The goal of 100 percent proficiency by 2014 is ludicrous; no nation or state has ever reached it. Achievement gains have been meager. Test scores improved more on federal tests in the five years preceding NCLB than in the years since it was implemented. What Washington does best is write checks, collect honest information, and call attention to problems. “

On the other hand, Margaret Spellings, current Secretary of Education and a big supporter of NCLB, writes Duncan:

“Congratulations. I don't want to hurt you, but I think you're a great choice. You're the right guy at the right time. I look forward to working with you and know you to be compatible, tough-minded and someone who does what's right on behalf of kids. You'll need those characteristics as secretary.”

Check out either of the above pages for links to advice from The Critic, The Early Education Advocate, The University Chancellor, The Student, The Teacher, The Astronomer, The Bioethicist, The School Superintendent, The Author, and The Thinker (as the Post describes them.)

Unfortunately, no one mentions the importance of class size. But then they also didn’t bother to ask any parent.

Even though on the very same day, Jay Mathews of the Post had a column, saying that sometimes, parents actually have good ideas when it comes to our children’s schools.

Clearly we are swimming against the tide.

If you'd like to know what some real-life parents from NYC and Chicago would recommend, check out the Common-sense reforms for our schools, from Class Size Matters and Parents United for Responsible Education.

The answer to the question, what ever happened to Robert Gordon?

I know you've all been dying to know.

Gordon, a former attorney and would-be educational reformer, spent a few months working at Tweed and doing a quick “hit job” on our schools by designing the fundamentally unfair “fair student funding” system. This system would have cut the budgets of half of our failing schools by over $400,000 if fully implemented– and still won’t give them a dime to improve conditions, whether that be reducing class size or doing anything else.

Now he’s back at the Center for American Progress – the supposedly liberal DC think tank which is led by lawyer John Podesta and where they have lots more lawyers who know nothing about education but are full of ideas about how to make poor urban schools even worse than they are. Interestingly, they never would conceive of the same solutions for the schools where their own kids go to school.

There's a new article by Robert Gordon in Slate on how to fix NCLB -- though he sees little to change. Here Gordon actually argues that improving our schools, is merely a matter of educators setting "clear and high expectations" for themselves and their students.” And we know what that means -- lots more testing, little learning.

He’s wrong on Texas by the way – studies show that the state's emphasis on high stakes testing did nothing to raise its students' test scores on the NAEP. Actually, the actual rise in achievement and the narrowing of the achievement gap came years before, when the state actually improved learning conditions by reducing class size in grades K-4 -- a reform proposed by a commission led by none other than Ross Perot.

Childrens do learn! But do the Mayor and George Bush?

Yesterday, President Bush stood in front of a group of New York City elementary school students with the Mayor by his side. He urged the renewal of NCLB by saying "Childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured."

Then the President praised Bloomberg for "moving aside bureaucracy that will inhibit the people he has selected to achieve the goal."

Bloomberg used the occasion to defend high-stakes tests: "As they get into high school, they have to decide whether to hang out with a gang, whether to hang out with somebody who has a gun, whether to try drugs, whether to act responsibly when it comes to sex...They're faced with whether to get married, whether to stay in school. We are, our children are facing high-stakes tests all the time."

As many experts have noted, there are all sorts of tests in life.

So why should the only tests that count in our school system be those given on paper, with multiple choices? Shouldn’t other measures of achievement count for our students, as they do in real life?

Update: According to the NY Times, the official White House transcript of Bush's remarks corrected his grammar.

Diane Ravitch: Reflections on the Math Scores in New York City and State

Math scores are up in New York City on state tests in grades three through eight. They are up in every grade. That’s terrific news for kids and their teachers, who have been working hard to improve achievement.

Last year, math scores were down, so the increase this year was a welcome change.

Across the span of grades 3-8 in the city’s schools, there was a gain of 8.1 percentage points, as compared to lower scores in 2006. The state has tested grades 3-8 (in response to the federal No Child Left Behind law) for only two years, in 2006 and 2007, so it is impossible to compare the scores for grades 3-8 in 2007 to any other year except 2006. As a matter of record, the largest increase in a single grade in a single year in New York City occurred in 2003, when math scores in the fourth grade jumped by nearly 15 points. This was the last state test reported prior to the implementation of Chancellor Joel Klein’s reform program.

This is what happened in this year’s math tests:

Math scores are up across the state; the gains in New York City outpaced the state gains. In grades 3-8, 72.7% across the state met the standards in 2007, compared to 65.8% in 2006, a gain of 6.9 points statewide. In the same grades, the proportion of New York City’s students meeting the standards rose from 57.0% to 65.1%, a gain of 8.1 points. Very impressive gains indeed, for both the state and the city, especially the city.

When Chancellor Klein’s Children First reforms were launched in September 2003, 66.7% of children in fourth grade met the state standards in math. In 2007, 74.1% of fourth grade students in New York City met the state standards in math. That is a cumulative gain during the years of mayoral control of 7.4 points, or a shade less than 2 points per year.

Recently, the press department at the New York City Department of Education had been claiming credit for the huge gains of 2003, but these scores (14.7 points in a single year) were recorded before the implementation of Children First.

Apparently the press department now claims that the city has gained 27.8 percentage points in grades 3-8 since 2002, but that seems unlikely. For one thing, the state has been testing these grades for only two years (before then, only grades 4 and 8 were tested annually). The press office seems to have combined the results of the state tests for 2007 with city tests that were administered in earlier years and have since been abandoned. It is unlikely that any independent psychometrician would approve of mixing the results of these disparate tests, which were not based on the same standards nor equated for their reliability and validity.

In the eighth grade, the gains for the city were also impressive, since this has been a historically low-scoring grade, where only twice before have more than 40% of students met state standards. When the Klein reforms were launched in 2003, only 34.4% of eighth graders met the state standards; in 2007, 45.6% did, a gain of 11.2 points over four years. That is a demonstration of the power of intensive test-prep activities, in which Tweed has invested heavily.

To be sure, testing experts tend to be suspicious of big changes in large-scale assessment programs, whether they go up or down. When a city or a state or a nation reports large one-year gains or losses, experts tend to raise their eyebrows and wonder about the test itself or the way it was scored. Was it easier or harder?

Jennifer Medina of The New York Times wisely pointed out in her first-day story that a federal study released just a week ago found that New York state’s math tests in 2005 in fourth grade and eighth grade were easier than in many other states. Indeed, New York’s fourth grade test was ranked easier than those in 28 of 32 other states, while the eighth grade was ranked below those of 12 other states in rigor. The State Education Department claimed that it changed the test in 2006 and made it more rigorous, which explained the drop in math scores last year; this year, with the astonishing increases in districts across the state, the State Education Department claims credit for improvements in teaching, curriculum, alignment, teacher training, collaboration with higher education, and everything else imaginable. So, if scores go down, the test got harder, but when scores go up, it has nothing to do with the test!

When the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reported the 2005 results for mathematics, New York state found itself in an embarrassing situation. According to federal data, New York claimed that an astonishing 87% of fourth grade students met state proficiency standards, but on NAEP tests in 2005, only 36% of fourth grade students were rated proficient. In eighth grade, the state claimed that 56% of students were proficient, but on the more rigorous NAEP, only 31% were proficient.

Once again, New York state has reported startling results, after last year’s dismal scores in math. The public can be relieved that its state and local leaders are on the job, raising scores diligently and boldly, doing all the right things in the classroom, the school, and the district.

I suggest that we wait patiently to see whether the recent gains on the state tests are reflected on the national tests when the results are posted in November 2007.

In the meanwhile, I suggest that Governor Spitzer think seriously about creating an independent agency to administer tests and report on test results, one staffed by top-notch psychometricians who take neither credit nor blame for test results in the state and local districts.

Diane Ravitch

For analysis of 2007 ELA click here and here

Charter schools: no child left behind?

The President's plane landed in Central Park yesterday, so that George Bush could visit a charter school, the Harlem Village Academy. There, he promoted NCLB, which encourages charter school conversions. Clearly, charter schools are a big part of the Bush education agenda, as well as a top priority for Bloomberg and Klein.

Most charter schools do offer smaller classes, and this tends to be their most attractive aspect for parents and teachers. In the April newsletter put out by the US Dept. of Education, called the Achiever, a charter high school in Chicago is featured at length, including an extended interview with a teacher named Ellen Metz:

"A key factor in running Noble Street productively has been reducing the class size. Metz-whose largest class is 23 students, a stark contrast to her previous school where 45 students filled one class-says the smaller class size enables teachers to give more individualized attention, which is particularly critical in urban schools where a student's needs can be great."

Charter school advocates also argue that their schools lead to improved outcomes throughout the public school system through emulation of their successful practices- including, most notably, smaller classes. Check out this power point from the NY State Charter School Institute.

Yet here in NYC, the same administration that promotes the proliferation of charter schools continues to deny the value of smaller classes in the regular public schools. Moreover, the rush to establish more charter schools in NYC has ironically hampered the ability to reduce class size throughout the system.

As the administration insists on cramming these schools in already existing school buildings, where each one eats up valuable classroom space with new administrative and cluster rooms, it either causes class sizes to grow in the pre-existing public school, or makes it that much more difficult to achieve smaller classes in the future.

The best quote about Bush's visit is in Newsday -- from a parent of a child who attends a regular public school in the same building:

He's only here to help the kids at the charter school; he's not helping my child," Edith Jackson, 37, an unemployed mother of an 11-year-old boy who attends school in the same building that houses the charter school, but doesn't have access to the same amenities. "Get them computers; get them a music teacher, and art," she said.

She said she was also upset that almost none of the parents from her son's school had been invited to hear the president, but that many from the charter school were allowed in.