NCLB & Testing

He says it, but he really doesn't mean it.

A couple of weeks ago, Education Secretary Arne Duncan addressed the National PTA's annual conference and asked for parents' help in improving three specific areas:

“It is time to think beyond assessing students with narrowly-focused bubble tests. It is time to think beyond the bake sale-barometer in promoting parental involvement. And it is time to think beyond the focus on math and English alone, and give every child a well-rounded education. We must stop narrowing the curriculum. Our children need—and deserve—so much more. My hope is that PTAs around the nation can be leaders in pressing for higher standards, better assessments, for a richer vision of parental involvement, and for a well-rounded curriculum” (emphasis added).

WOW! That sounds great. He just checked off two of the four major school reform recommendations PURE has been promoting for years, most recently in the Parents Across America letter to Congress and President Obama. The letter opposed more charters, turnarounds, and testing and suggested instead:

• ending unfair funding disparities,

• reducing class sizes,

• providing a balanced curriculum with multiple assessments, and

• requiring that schools involve parents in the decision-making process.

So, are we halfway to our goal? Has Arne come around to our way of thinking, at least in two of our four major points?

Sadly, no. It's just ArneSpeak. The rhetoric sounds good, but a close read of Duncan's entire speech to the PTA makes it clear that we're not even close. In fact, ArneSpeak sounds just like Arne during his eight years in Chicago, when we had to listen to his empty rhetoric and fight every day against his policies of high-stakes testing, narrowing the curriculum, and shutting parents out of decision making.

I'll be taking that speech apart in the next few days.

Was it a meteor? A UFO? Or just the light of reason dawning at the Tribune (Education Reforms get a Failing Grade: Neither conservatives nor liberals have a cure for bad schools)?

Of course, he immediately states that the other side's reforms (he lists lower class size and increased funding) haven't worked either. You know, "Well, we were both wrong."

But I'll let that pass and bask in the hope that this new enlightenment will take root across the page -- I expect to see Tribune board editorials any day retracting their support for Sen. Meeks' voucher bill (they loved it as recently as two weeks ago), slamming the Advance Illinois agenda for our state's Race to the Top proposal (they just came out for more charters and test-driven teacher evaluation) and demanding more accountability from charter schools (here's just one example le of the double of the double standard they have been using).

Chapman does something even better than admitting that the Trib has been wrong -- he admits that we don't know enough about what works in education and why, and cautions that imposing one-size-fits-all solutions "such as those offered by the Obama administration" is the wrong approach.

But we do know some things. There are models of success in our own back yard, such as the local school council-based reforms of the 1990's detailed in Designs for Change's The Big Picture, the wholistic approach described in the Consortium on Chicago School Research's new study, Organizing Schools for Improvement, and the parent- and teacher-centered programs of Strtegic Learning Initiatives. 

And we need to stop wasting time on all the mandates and top-down "fixes" that don't work and get busy doing a better job expanding some of the things that do work.

PURE has sent CPS CEO Ron Huberman a revised proposal to change the system's elementary promotion policy.

The evidence is overwhelming that the current CPS promotion policy does not work. It disproportionately harms African-American and Latino students.

At a time when we are experiencing a national economic emergency, there can be no excuse for perpetuating a wasteful, costly program that research has shown offers no benefit to the children it purports to help.

The CPS promotion policy has also been shown to accelerate the drop out rate at a time of national commitment to address this crisis.

This proposal will not take CPS back to social promotion, which also did not work (but which was actually more effective than retention). We believe it's time to move forward, to learn from the mistakes of both social promotion and retention, and try to avoid them.

PURE is offering to help Mr. Huberman establish a policy that proactively addresses students' needs instead of retroactively punishing them.

Here's our proposal. We will keep you posted on Mr. Huberman's response.

CORRECTION - WBEZ's Linda Lutton informs me that the reporter who asked Arne about turnarounds was Sarah Karp from Catalyst. See revised story below.

****

Thanks to Catalyst's Sarah Karp (here's her excellent story)  for asking Arne Duncan point blank about the connection between school turnarounds and the violence at Fenger at this morning's press conference. AP reporter Karen Hawkins also reported on Arne's response. Which was:

That's "absolutely ridiculous."

Oh, really? 

So the local alderman and Fenger's local school council members just don't understand what's going on in their own community? And you know better?

More phony Arne numbers

His "data-driven" proof was that there were 104 students from Altgeld Gardens at Fenger in 2004 and 119 in 2009, and that an increase of 15 students couldn't be to blame.

Who dug that "statistic" up for him? Can you picture someone going through the rolls for him and counting the "Altgeld Gardens" students over the years? Maybe it was the same person who always told him that attendance on the first day of school went up AGAIN this year??? Or the same data base where he got his information about how much better Dodge and Sherman students were doing after the turnarounds (though most of them were long gone). Or the place where he found out that North Lawndale College Prep had a 100% graduation rate??

The responsible thing 

Even if Arne still thinks his mess of an R2010 program is great, can't he consider for a minute that it might have some adverse impact on students, or consider for a minute that it might help just to slow things down (rather than take the same program nationwide) just in case it might save one child's life? 

The responsible response would be to say that "we are looking at anything and everything that might be affecting our schools and students. We will learn from our mistakes and work to fix anything that isn't working."   

What have you done

Arne spent a lot of his time at the press conference criticizing people for trying to place blame, and claiming that EVERYONE is to blame: "To those who want to point fingers, first ask yourself what you have done... we need to look into a collective mirror."

Well, what some of us have done is try to stop you from steamrolling a massive school destabilization program that has just about destroyed the Chicago school system. We've tried to place children's lives ahead of political stunts.

And what have you done, Arne?

Absolutely ridiculous. 

It's important to recognize that groups like Advance Illinois ("Our children's future is in jeopardy!!! screams their web site) and rich folks like Bill Gates (Big Brother is gonna watch you teach!) have been on a mission lately to create a "Red Alert" scare in the U. S. over the state of public education by obsessing over standardized test scores and making bogus comparisons between our nation's public schools and those in other countries.

Debunking those claims is important. But it's also important to talk about what they DON'T talk about, that is, the real crisis in America.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based watchdog of industrialized nations, infant mortality in the U.S. is the fourth-worst in the OECD after Mexico, Turkey and Slovakia. Child poverty rates in the U.S. are nearly double the OECD average, at 21.6 percent compared to 12.4 percent. The rate of teen births in the U.S. is three times the OECD average, with only Mexico recording a higher rate among OECD countries, the report said.

If these folks care so much about children, why does this kind of information never appear in their "research base" or come up in their conversation?

Why is it that we "can't wait" to close and privatize schools and fire teachers and staff, but we need "incremental" health care reform and no new taxes?  

In these tight economic times,

CPS continues to waste more than

$100,000,000 a year

on a program that doesn't work,

and harms children.

Tuesday, PURE sent CPS CEO Ron Huberman a proposal for CPS to stop flunking children and redirect the annual $100-200 million costs to programs that work. The CPS policy is a proven failure, and there are better ways to spend that money including lower class size, early intervention (like the highly successful Child Parent Centers CPS has closed), and an improved, proactive assessment system using true multiple measures, not the multiple barriers in the current promotion policy.

The CPS policy also disproportionately affects African-American and Latino children, which violates their civil rights.

We are confident that Mr. Huberman, who is known to make his decisions based on data and research, will toss out the 13-year-old policy as recommended five years ago by Chicago researchers.

Here's the graphic cover, the executive summary, the full proposal, and a list of references to research that supports our recommendations.     

Mike Klonsky's Small Talk reports on what is likely to be a major bump in the Arne Duncan road show.

Fed Ed Head Duncan has been going around the country with Al Sharpton talking about education and civil rights, but it's looking as though Rev. Sharpton is not so keen on one of Arne's signature strategies, mayoral control.

According to the Gotham Schools blog, Sharpton wants state lawmakers to build more meaningful parental input into a new school governance law.

New York City's mayoral control law sunsets this month, and NYC parents, teachers and community groups have been fighting hard for a new law that includes more parent voice, such as Chicago's LSC law. PURE has supported this effort with trips to New York , copies of the school reform law and LSC training materials, and conversations with state legislative aides.

We're watching this one closely! 

PURE has several tip sheets for parents who have just learned that their child is being sent to summer school.

• What to do if your child is not promoted.

• How to help your child move up to the next grade after summer school.

• "What is a Portfolio" and "Parts of a Portfoiio," which can help you gather evidence needed for a waiver request if CPS decides to hold your child back after summer school. 

PURE can help parents who have questions or concerns about the promotion policy, Please call our office at 312-491-9101 or e-mail us.

We are also looking for families who might be interested in participating in a legal strategy opposing the CPS promotion policy. Please contact us via e-mail or phone.   

Chicago parent, teacher and foe of high-stakes testing Wade Tillett gets a big chunk of space on Daily Kos thanks to this post by Kenneth Bernstein, who adds some kind words about PURE's ongoing effort to educate folks about the dangers of Arne Duncan's schemes.

Be sure to check out bubbleover.net for the latest in the local fight against high-stakes standardized testing.

It will only be a few days before flunking notices go out for Chicago 3rd, 6th and 8th graders. Few parents will be prepared for this - please call (312-491-9101) or e-mail us if you need help or if you hear of anyone whose child is affected this year. We are preparing some new legal strategies and would like to include more families.

"Flunkin' Duncan" might be gone, but thousands of children will continue to be harmed by the current CPS promotion policy.   

The changeover from Margaret Spellings to Arne Duncan as Fed Ed head may not be very "dramatic" in terms of NCLB implementation, but one difference is clear; Ed Review, an official e-mail newsletter of the Department, showcases Arne's superlative vocabulary of adjectives and adverbs:

"The Secretary hosted more than 150 representatives from education and community groups at the Department for a briefing on the ARRA. 'We see an extraordinary opportunity to change students' lives,' he stated. 'We want to push a dramatic reform agenda. We want to use an unprecedented investment in education to change outcomes and dramatically improve achievement.' " 

A few months ago I told Arne that my head would explode if he referred to AUSL turnaround schools as "dramatically better" one more time, and he actually stopped... at least in front of me. But now I fear that the nation's collective head is at risk.

A new study by William J. Mathis, adjunct associate professor of school finance at the University of Vermont and a superintendent of schools, reviews the existing body of research on each of the five NCLB restructuring options (the final sanction for failure to meet adequate yearly progress) and finds that

“there is little or no evidence to suggest that any of these options delivers the promised improvements in academic achievement” but notes that “negative side effects are frequently recorded including increased segregation, substantial, short-term drops in achievement scores and organizational instability.”

Based on his review of research, Mathis recommends that districts

• stop expanding the number of charter schools and relying on takeovers, privatization and other restructuring efforts for school improvement, and
• focus on making sure that all schools have adequate resources and support so that they can improve, and support such proven strategies such as early education, smaller class size, small school communities, intense personal intervention, and strong counseling and social support systems.  

Also, check out an article in the latest Rethinking Schools, "Arne Duncan and the Chicago Succcess Story: Myth or Reality?" by  GEM members Jitu Brown (from KOCO) and Pauline Lipman and Rico Gutstein (from UIC). I think you know the answer to that multiple-choice question.

A couple of recent stories are not to be missed as we prepare for yet another contentious Board of Education meeting this Wednesday, March 25, when we expect the Board to approve and renew a number of charter and other novelty school contracts (here's the Board agenda).

1) This story from WBEZ’s Linda Lutton, on the truth behind the turnaround at Harper:    

"Harper High School on the city’s south side is getting the most extreme fix Chicago has for schools: a 'turnaround.' Eighty percent of the staff is new. And the district has spent millions of extra dollars to improve Harper and raise academic performance. But if scores go up, it might be due to something else as well: 30 percent of Harper students are gone."

2) Mike Klonsky's comments on the latest Rand Corp report showing – AGAIN again -- that charter schools don’t outperform Traditional Public Schools (TPS). Mike's six reasons why:

1. There's really not much different taking place inside charter school classrooms.
2. Comparisons mainly focus on standardized test scores, the same scores used to condemn urban public schools where non-school factors like poverty and social inequities, play a major role in driving these scores.  
3. Charter schools aren't all one thing, any more than TPS. Some are great and some are horrible. But they are all lumped together for the purposes of these studies as well as for political and ideological reasons by self-interested charter school associations and conservative think tanks.  
4. The things that make charters unique, ie. no collective bargaining rights for teachers, weak accountability and oversight, are not things that improve student performance.   
5. In these kinds of statistical studies of large groups of schools across states, everything reverts to the mean (average). In other words, if you eliminate the small, high-performing group of innovative and teacher/student-friendly charters in the study, you're left with hundreds of charters, usually in chains managed by cookie-cutter minded operators that are doing much worse than regular public schools. In fact, the study doesn't even take into account the hundreds of charters which have been closed for low performance or mismanagement.   
6. Chains like KIPP, which do produce slightly higher scores, often do so by means of attrition--pushing out low-scoring or special-needs students. This factor wasn't even taken into account in the Rand study.

Last week, scientists expressed satisfaction with President Obama’s executive order reinstating real science as the basis for scientific policy making.

The Tribune reported, “The order directs his administration to develop guidelines ‘to ensure that in this new administration we base our public policies on the soundest science, that we appoint scientific advisers based on their credentials and experience, not their politics or ideology.’ "

One prominent scientist described this as a “breath of fresh air.”

So, when will some of that fresh air blow into the federal Dept. of Education? New Fed Ed boss Arne Duncan has no education credentials, nor does he have any relevant experience running schools. He was appointed for his political, ideological adherence to the corporate agenda to privatize public schools -- and there's NO EVIDENCE that privatization works.

Maybe close Obama friend Sen. Dick Durbin can help. In a response to a Tribune editorial last week criticizing Durbin's role in ending a Washington, D.C., voucher program, the Senator suggested that “Many benefiting from this program want no questions asked about its efficacy. I think the taxpayers deserve better.”

Not to mention the children.

Durbin explained, “The Department of Education and Government Accountability Office have both studied the program and found ‘schools’ (sometimes consisting of a single room in a church basement) with significant health and safety issues, teachers who lack college degrees or teaching credentials, and no meaningful evidence that voucher students are performing better than their public school counterparts.”

This is a start. Let’s hope that Sen. Durbin reminds his friend that education policy must be based on evidence, too.

Less than a week ago, PURE's Wanda Hopkins stood before the Board of Education members in a Grim Reaper costume. She reminded them that, with authority comes responsibility. She also stated that we know where they live and work.

PURE has posted this information on our web site, shared it with e-mail groups, and handed it out at various events.

Today the Sun-Times confirmed the rumor that Rufus Williams is out as Board president, and that other Board members may be leaving, too. 

The current Board members have seemed to think that they can rubber stamp policies that harm children, and remain anonymous. That's no longer going to be possible for them.

In addition, we are exposing and holding accountable the people behind Renaissance 2010. Their names, contact, and business information are here. 

Our GEM coalition has proposed local boycotts and demonstrations at MacDonald's and Walgreen's, two of the many businesses that fund Renaissance 2010.

Such boycotts could become nation wide as the same tactics to destroy our public school system spread under No Child Left Behind, mayoral control and Education Secretary Arne Duncan's leadership.  

A new era of responsibility....

Those words in President Obama’s (man, doesn't that sound nice?) inaugural speech may not soar for everyone, but since “responsible” is PURE’s middle name, the message scored a direct hit here.

And it’s not the first time we’ve been pleased to hear such talk from him, and not just generally but in the specific context of education.

Right before he clinched the Democratic nomination, Obama made a speech in which he said, “I believe it's time to lead a new era of mutual responsibility in education, one where we all come together for the sake of our children's success.”

Here are some of the examples then-nominee Obama used to illustrate “irresponsibility”; he said,

• Forcing our teachers, our principals and our schools to accomplish all of this without the resources they need is wrong.
• Promising high-quality teachers in every classroom and then leaving the support and the pay for those teachers behind is wrong.
• Labeling a school and its students as failures one day and then throwing your hands up and walking away from them the next is wrong.
• We also need to realize that we can meet high standards without forcing teachers and students to spend most of the year preparing for a single, high-stakes test.

Here’s another example from a speech in Ohio: “(A)s president, I’ll double the funding for responsible charter schools. Now, I know you’ve had a tough time with for-profit charter schools here in Ohio. That is why I’ll work with Gov. Strickland to hold for-profit charter schools accountable; and I’ll work with all our nation’s governors to hold all our charter schools accountable…. Charters that aren’t will get shut down.”(emphasis added)

The era of responsibility couldn’t come too soon for our children. It’s time for us grown-ups to stop playing destructive games like Renaissance 2010 and start supporting public education in a real, meaningful, serious way. 

I can't be in Washington D. C. for Arne Duncan’s confirmation hearing tomorrow, but I have a few questions I'm sending to panel members hoping they will be asked. 

1 - President-elect Obama campaigned against high-stakes testing and overuse of standardized tests. Under your leadership, Chicago has continued to place a great deal of emphasis on standardized tests, including using the state test scores to determine which students will be promoted or will graduate, and narrowing the curriculum to focus on a small set of tested skills. (See note 1) How will you help President Obama keep his campaign promise to improve the quality of student assessment and reduce the emphasis on standardized tests? 

2 - You were selected for this post in part because you have closed and reopened a number of schools in your district. What has been the impact of your school closing policies on children whose schools have closed? On children in those schools which have received students from closed schools? May we have copies of any reports your administration prepared tracking these students? Were these reports made available to the public? (See note 2)

3 - Please explain how you compare academic results of Chicago’s charter and other Renaissance 2010 schools to regular neighborhood schools when many of the Renaissance 2010 schools have advantages over traditional schools such as parents who are motivated enough to negotiate challenging entrance procedures, significant private funding, and restricted enrollments? Do you take these differences into account in analyzing and comparing results? If there are successful programs in Renaissance 2010 schools, how have they been shared with traditional neighborhood schools?

4 - We understand that you have removed democratically elected, parent-majority local school councils from most of your new schools and replaced them with bodies that are appointed by the Board of Education and have by some reports fewer than 5% parents as members. (See note 4) A lawsuit against the Chicago Board of Education to stop the dismantling of these governing bodies was recently allowed to move ahead by a Cook County Circuit Court judge. (See note 5) How does this reflect your commitment to public accountability and parent engagement, particularly in school decision making?

A final concern: Since state law changed in 1995, the head of the Chicago public school system (and no other system in the state) is allowed to be a non-educator. Parents, teachers and the community strongly object to this situation and believe that having a non-educator heading the school system has led to some of the questionable policies and practices referenced above. When President-elect Obama named Arne Duncan as his choice for education secretary, a sense of betrayal and keen disappointment rippled throughout the education community, and particularly among African-American educators. We urge you to consider voting no on this unfortunate choice, and that you demand a nominee who has intensive, authentic education experience and the highest quality education credentials.    

Note 1 - For example, “Intensive prep for the ACT exam in Chicago's public schools not only failed to boost ACT scores, but actually dragged them down, according to a University of Chicago study to be released today.”

Note 2 -  “There has always been a gap between African-American and other students in terms of mobility, but data show that this gap [is] widening,” says senior research analyst Marisa de la Torre. De la Torre is conducting a follow-up report on mobility, updating a 1994 study that provided the first in-depth look at the problem in CPS. De la Torre speculates that public housing demolition and school closings, which hit hardest in low-income black communities, are to blame.” (Catalyst Magazine, March 2007)

Note 3 - “A close look at Sherman (a Renaissance 2010 “model”) shows less than exciting results, which also are compromised by a significant alteration in the student population as evidenced by the enrollment drop and the drop in the school's low-income rate, from 99 percent in 2006, the year before the takeover, to 84.2 percent in 2008....in science -- where there is less opportunity for teaching to the test -- (state test) scores dropped dramatically. The percentage of students meeting and exceeding state standards in science dropped from 32 percent in 2006 to 20 percent in 2008. Keep in mind that Sherman has more resources than typical CPS schools. These perks are unlikely to be economically feasible on a larger scale, which is one more reason to question its usefulness as a model.” (JW op ed, Sun-Times, Dec. 27, 2008)

Note 4 - “Fifty-seven schools or charter networks were contacted. More than two-thirds of these Renaissance 2010 schools failed to respond either to our first or second FOIA request or to a letter from the Illinois Attorney General. We conclude that these schools have no governing bodies, which violates the law and CPS policy. Within the smaller set of 18 responding schools/networks, we found more reason for concern: Only 7 of the 152 board members of the responding charter schools are parents, or less than 5%. This indicates a major lack of legally-mandated parent involvement in school governance.” (PURE report, Accountability and Renaissance 2010)

Note 5 - “Cook County Circuit Court Judge Sophia Hall denied a Chicago Board of Education motion for summary judgment which asked her to throw out the small and alternative schools Local School Council (LSC) lawsuit filed by a number of LSCs, LSC members, parents, and advocacy organizations. LSC attorneys Elaine K. B. Siegel and Associates argued that the Chicago Public Schools’ broad practice of closing schools and reopening them without elected LSCs violates the school reform law.”  (report on PURE Thoughts)

PURE's perspective on charter schools explodes 6 common myths.

Decades of research have documented the biases in standardized tests, with students of color bearing the brunt of that discrimination. Across age groups, standardized tests discriminate against low-income students, English language learners, and students of color.

Although in recent years test makers have attempted to address concerns about test bias by establishing review committees to “scour” the tests for bias, and by using statistical procedures, significant problems remain in the content of the questions, the cultural assumptions inherent in the “wanted” answers, etc. Here are just a few examples:

Standardized tests have many weaknesses including scoring errors, bias, and a dumbed-down approach to learning. Here's a one-page overview of some of the main problems with standardized tests.   

“Reforms” Touted in "Chicago Miracle" Lack Success; Schools with Locally-initiated Strategies Produce More Learning

A report released today challenges key strategies of the federal No Child Left Behind law by demonstrating that similar initiatives in Chicago failed to improve student learning. At the same time, significant academic progress was made in many Chicago Public Schools (CPS) which relied on locally-initiated reform strategies focused less on high-stakes standardized exams.       

Local political and business leaders have long claimed that top-down CPS initiatives have been successful and applauded their incorporation in the federal “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) law. But the new report, Chicago School Reform: Lessons for the Nation, found more progress in Chicago schools that developed strong curriculums, ensured professional development of classroom educators, and shared leadership among parent councils, the principal and teachers independent of the CPS central office.     

The report is based on a review of academic studies of Chicago schools, which show, for example, that Chicago’s retention program harmed rather than helped students, CPS test scores flatlined in schools where central office controls replaced local decision making, and top-down interventions over 10 years did not work. The report was sponsored by Designs for Change and Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE) along with the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest).

Read the Press Release here and the Executive Summary here.

Testing in Chicago has been a high-stakes business since 1995, when newly-appointed Chicago Public Schools Chief Executive Officer Paul Vallas instituted student retention and school intervention policies based on single year test scores on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) at the elementary school level and the Tests of Proficiency (TAP) at the high school level.

Since then, retention and probation policies have been modified, but only a little, and new stakes have been added with the aggressive CPS school closure program and the looming consequences of failure to make Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Here's summary of some of the programs that combine testing and high stakes in Chicago, and evidence that they don't work!

PURE testimony for the Public Education Network's No Child Left Behind public hearing, presented on November 17, 2005

Read it here.

Click here for a one-page summary of NCLB

The U. S. Department of Education has created guidelines” for parent involvement programs required by the No Child Left Behind Act. The guidelines spell out in detail the responsibilities of the state, school district, and school in carrying out parent involvement activities.

Click here for a summary of these guidelines.

Straight Talk for Parents and Communities about the No Child Left Behind Act

Download here.                    

Recommendations developed for Congressman Danny Davis Presented at State of the District Town Hall meeting, September 18, 2004

Download here. 

What is the parents’ role in Looking at Schools?

The No Child Left Behind Act encourages parents to observe in their children's classrooms to become better informed about the curriculum and to help contribute to school improvement planning.

Click here for tips and ideas to make the most of classroom observation.

PURE’s overall goal is that every child receive a high-quality education. We are very concerned about the effects of the No Child Left Behind Act on our schools and our children. While the overall goal of NCLB is commendable, the law relies primarily on marketplace strategies designed to create winners and losers rather than on sound educational practices designed to create and support high quality schools. The public school system has a higher purpose and a greater challenge than competitive enterprise. In order to truly leave no child behind, we must fix every school for every child.

Read the statement