On the Sandy Hook Tragedy:
I would like to refer my readers to the
recent posts by Diane Ravitch concerning the horrible shootings at
Sandy Hook Elementary school. Dr Ravitch provides us with
an excellent perspective from an educator's point of view on this
senseless tragedy. Most educators I know are not surprised by the
spontaneous acts of heroism by the principal and faculty of this
typically good public school.
On the Issues of School and Teacher Performance:
Barbara Leader of the Monroe News Star recently reported on some of the nonsensical
results of Louisiana's school rating and teacher evaluation systems.
The reporter has discovered a remarkable disagreement between the
accountability rating scores of several of the school systems in Northeast Louisiana and
the teacher value added evaluations. That is, in some school systems rated
as poor by the Louisiana school performance scores, the
value added scores of the teachers are disproportionately high and in
some top rated school systems the value added scores are disproportionately
low! There are even some school systems with both disproportionate
numbers of high value added teachers and low value added
teachers. In my opinion, such results reflect poorly on both the letter grades for schools and the
new value added teacher evaluation system.
The media and the public have
been seriously misled by our amateur education leaders in Louisiana
about what constitutes a good school and what makes a good teacher.
These strange results are occurring because our school rating system
is based purely on student performance, instead of teacher
performance and our value added system is based on pseudo science
which inaccurately predicts the performance of many classrooms.
Representative Hoffman who authored the
new teacher evaluation system is now admitting that the system is
flawed. Yet apparently he and the other legislators are still willing
to let the program go forward and possibly damage or end the careers
of good teachers. Would those same legislators be willing to pass
laws that end the careers of doctors, lawyers or accountants based on
the mortality rates of patients, the conviction rates of suspects,
and the poor money management of businesses? Or would they admit that
possibly doctors are not responsible for the smoking habits and unhealthy lifestyles of
patients and lawyers can't help it if some of their clients break the
law, and accountants cannot always get their client business leaders
to follow good money management advice
But in Jindal's war on public education,
taxpayers are being led to believe that all schools should be
producing great results regardless of parent cooperation and the
handicaps faced by students. The public is encouraged to assume that
if a school in a poor neighborhood scores a D on the school rating
system then the teachers and the principal must not be doing their
jobs. Yet the value added system may very well rate the teachers and
principal at that school to be above average of even excellent. At
the same time newspapers have reported examples of highly rated
magnet schools where the teachers are judged by the VAM as below
average or poor.
If the legislature really wants to do
the right thing, they will junk both the school rating system and the
VAM and insist that professional educators take the place of the
amateurs at the State Department of Education and that the real educators
be allowed to do their job of improving our public schools.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Cyber School Waste
Pennsylvania auditors are waking up to the fact that cyber charter schools are spending millions of taxpayer dollars on advertising just to attract students to their inferior on-line courses. The auditors point out that such schools are receiving much too generous state funding. The same is true in Louisiana where our two virtual charters receive 90% of regular MFP funding.
It costs much less to operate cyber schools than brick and mortar schools because the provider avoids building construction, maintenance, guidance, food service, and most special education services. On top of that, many virtual schools have pupil teacher ratios of 150 to one and more. No wonder most states are finding that cyber schools provide extremely inferior education. In Louisiana, unspecified profits are diverted to the for-profit companies that provide content for the "dummy" non-profits approved by BESE.
One of the reasons for the millions spent on student recruitment is the huge turnover rate of cyber students. If traditional schools produced such terrible results and spent millions on advertising and gave out millions in bonuses to executives, the operators would be hauled before the legislative committees and publicly humiliated before being fired. But for some reason the privately run cyber operators remain at the public trough. Could it have something to do with the generous contributions to our politicians?
Do any of my readers know if the teachers in the two virtual schools are being evaluated according to the Act 54 evaluation system? I just don't know the answer to this.
To anyone who wants to truly understand the disaster we face in public education caused by the corporate reformers, I recommend the linked interview here of Diane Ravitch by Tavis Smiley. It is 30 minutes long, but I promise you that every minute is worth listening to. Dr Ravitch's analysis represents the best hope we have of reversing this disastrous course our politicians have chosen.
It costs much less to operate cyber schools than brick and mortar schools because the provider avoids building construction, maintenance, guidance, food service, and most special education services. On top of that, many virtual schools have pupil teacher ratios of 150 to one and more. No wonder most states are finding that cyber schools provide extremely inferior education. In Louisiana, unspecified profits are diverted to the for-profit companies that provide content for the "dummy" non-profits approved by BESE.
One of the reasons for the millions spent on student recruitment is the huge turnover rate of cyber students. If traditional schools produced such terrible results and spent millions on advertising and gave out millions in bonuses to executives, the operators would be hauled before the legislative committees and publicly humiliated before being fired. But for some reason the privately run cyber operators remain at the public trough. Could it have something to do with the generous contributions to our politicians?
Do any of my readers know if the teachers in the two virtual schools are being evaluated according to the Act 54 evaluation system? I just don't know the answer to this.
To anyone who wants to truly understand the disaster we face in public education caused by the corporate reformers, I recommend the linked interview here of Diane Ravitch by Tavis Smiley. It is 30 minutes long, but I promise you that every minute is worth listening to. Dr Ravitch's analysis represents the best hope we have of reversing this disastrous course our politicians have chosen.
Friday, December 7, 2012
BESE Defies Court Decisions
Public education was subjected to more
insanity this week from the Jindal and the ALEC controlled BESE. BESE, at
the request of Superintendent John White, voted to approve 45 Choice
Course providers to offer MFP funded private courses in the 2013-14
school year. Tom Aswell writes in the Blog, Louisiana Voice,
that not only is this action in conflict with the recent State and
Federal court decisions outlawing MFP funded vouchers, but several of
the BESE members voting for this windfall for private providers may
have a serious conflict of interest. BESE members Lottie Beebie and
Carolyn Hill were the only members who voted against the
authorization. Ms Beebie suggested that at least 5 members of BESE
should have recused themselves from voting on the Choice Course
authorizations. It seems that some of the BESE members expressing
enthusiasm for the privately sponsored courses had received hefty
campaign contributions from some of the Course providers or their
owners. I hope you will read the Louisiana Voice story (see the post dated Dec. 5)
linked here which details the campaign contributions to BESE members
by some of the Choice Providers.
In addition to the two court rulings against MFP funding and violation of deseg. requirements for Choice Courses, there are other important reasons for not approving Choice Courses as they are presently structured. I received a very disturbing answer from the BESE president to a letter I sent in September questioning the guidelines for Choice Courses. Following the response from Dastigue, I requested and received a meeting with Superintendent John White to discuss my concerns about the guidelines for Choice Courses. ( click here to read the Reuters story about Louisiana A la carte courses)
The meeting I had with White was very cordial and he seemed to be interested in my concerns about potential abuse or even fraud in the implementation of choice courses by some providers. I presented my concerns to White in writing in the form of the letter I had sent to BESE. He promised to review my concerns and get back to me with a response. To date there has been no response from White. Now BESE has approved the choice course program with no real safeguards for our tax dollars.
My major concern about Choice courses that is not adequately addressed in the BESE guidelines is that there is no guarantee that choice providers will deliver any level of value for our tax dollars. That's because the compulsory attendance law is basically waived for most choice courses. The problem is that there is no provision in BESE guidelines for taking roll for students attending choice courses. Also in the case of virtual courses delivered over the internet, students are exempted from a minimum number of hours of instruction. According to present BESE and DOE policy, students don't really have to attend choice courses in order for the provider to be paid. All that is needed for payment of the fee is for the provider to report to the DOE that the student has completed the course. Completion could be taking the provider's word that the student has passed the provider's tests, or it could be simply a statement by the provider that the student has completed all assignments required by the course. In other words, the provider has every incentive to claim that the student has completed a course even if he/she has done almost nothing. This was confirmed in my reply from Dastigue indicating that a student taking a “choice” credit recovery course or a high school course that requires end of course testing does not have to pass any such test for the provider to receive full payment!
None of the above shenanigans could happen in a regular public school setting. That's because there is real accountability for students, parents and schools in a regular public school provided course. By law, attendance is taken every day and if a student misses ten or more days, he/she cannot get credit for a course. In addition school systems are required by law to track down all truant or tardy students. Parents who do not send their children regularly to school can be found to be negligent by local judges and can be fined and required to send their children to school. But according to BESE rules for choice courses, students, parents and choice providers get a free pass and permission to misuse our taxes. This is what passes as education reform in Louisiana.
Jindal and White have stated that parents are the best judge of the value of a school or course provider and that parents should have every right to spend their child's MFP funding at any approved school or with any approved choice provider. But here is my objection to that claim. That MFP money does not belong to the parent or the child. In some cases the parent may not have paid any taxes that go to the MFP. That money belongs to all Louisiana taxpayers, even those who have no children in school. We all pay our taxes to provide for the common good of all citizens. That's why we all deserve accountability for all public funds spent to educate children. That's why choice course providers should not be allowed to write their own check for any services given to public school students. All of this is in addition to the fact that so far the courts have ruled that choice courses provided though the MFP are unconstitutional!http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/06/us-education-customize-idUSBRE8B50LE20121206
In addition to the two court rulings against MFP funding and violation of deseg. requirements for Choice Courses, there are other important reasons for not approving Choice Courses as they are presently structured. I received a very disturbing answer from the BESE president to a letter I sent in September questioning the guidelines for Choice Courses. Following the response from Dastigue, I requested and received a meeting with Superintendent John White to discuss my concerns about the guidelines for Choice Courses. ( click here to read the Reuters story about Louisiana A la carte courses)
The meeting I had with White was very cordial and he seemed to be interested in my concerns about potential abuse or even fraud in the implementation of choice courses by some providers. I presented my concerns to White in writing in the form of the letter I had sent to BESE. He promised to review my concerns and get back to me with a response. To date there has been no response from White. Now BESE has approved the choice course program with no real safeguards for our tax dollars.
My major concern about Choice courses that is not adequately addressed in the BESE guidelines is that there is no guarantee that choice providers will deliver any level of value for our tax dollars. That's because the compulsory attendance law is basically waived for most choice courses. The problem is that there is no provision in BESE guidelines for taking roll for students attending choice courses. Also in the case of virtual courses delivered over the internet, students are exempted from a minimum number of hours of instruction. According to present BESE and DOE policy, students don't really have to attend choice courses in order for the provider to be paid. All that is needed for payment of the fee is for the provider to report to the DOE that the student has completed the course. Completion could be taking the provider's word that the student has passed the provider's tests, or it could be simply a statement by the provider that the student has completed all assignments required by the course. In other words, the provider has every incentive to claim that the student has completed a course even if he/she has done almost nothing. This was confirmed in my reply from Dastigue indicating that a student taking a “choice” credit recovery course or a high school course that requires end of course testing does not have to pass any such test for the provider to receive full payment!
None of the above shenanigans could happen in a regular public school setting. That's because there is real accountability for students, parents and schools in a regular public school provided course. By law, attendance is taken every day and if a student misses ten or more days, he/she cannot get credit for a course. In addition school systems are required by law to track down all truant or tardy students. Parents who do not send their children regularly to school can be found to be negligent by local judges and can be fined and required to send their children to school. But according to BESE rules for choice courses, students, parents and choice providers get a free pass and permission to misuse our taxes. This is what passes as education reform in Louisiana.
Jindal and White have stated that parents are the best judge of the value of a school or course provider and that parents should have every right to spend their child's MFP funding at any approved school or with any approved choice provider. But here is my objection to that claim. That MFP money does not belong to the parent or the child. In some cases the parent may not have paid any taxes that go to the MFP. That money belongs to all Louisiana taxpayers, even those who have no children in school. We all pay our taxes to provide for the common good of all citizens. That's why we all deserve accountability for all public funds spent to educate children. That's why choice course providers should not be allowed to write their own check for any services given to public school students. All of this is in addition to the fact that so far the courts have ruled that choice courses provided though the MFP are unconstitutional!http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/06/us-education-customize-idUSBRE8B50LE20121206
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