Data-less predictions?

It looks like Duncan and the federal DOE won’t penalize California for opting out of useless 2014 testing. From SI&A Cabinet Report : “A survey of experts – many of whom have participated in similar disputes with the Department of Education in the past – say there’s virtually no chance of a drastic rollback in funding.”

But what are the implications of the statewide opt-out for the CORE confederacy? In the Sacto Bee yesterday, CORE president [sic] Michael Hanson writes: “The 10 CORE districts representing 20 percent of California’s students urge the governor to sign AB 484, but only if he adds resources to ensure that every student in California can take both these new assessments, giving all of California the opportunity to learn from the result…The California state budget included more than a billion dollars to help districts transition to the Common Core State Standards, and districts can use the money for new computers or other needed technology. It just makes sense to empower schools so they can make informed choices about how to spend these resources.”

I bet the CORE districts need their cut of that billion to pay for testing required by their waiver. Both Option 1 and Option 2 in the waiver’s School Quality Improvement System require “student achievement results.” At my old high school, the principal and staff from the SFUSD Research, Planning and Accountability office are directing department chairs to provide written “predictions” about student and grade level performances for 2013-204. Not much point to making predictions of test score gains if there aren’t going to be any test scores, and somebody has to foot the bill for the testing.

(BTW, it is indeed 10 districts now. Garden Grove and Clovis appear to be in the mix with Fresno, Oakland, Sanger, Sacramento, Santa Ana, Long Beach, Los Angeles and San Francisco.)

Cake without the eating?

State Supt. Torlakson issued a press release this morning noting support for AB 484 from the broad coalition of Californians Together:: “Shelly Spiegel-Coleman, Executive Director of Californians Together: ‘Approval …sends a clear message to every California school about our commitment to the urgent challenge ahead.'” Nothing directly from CTA or CFT, and not a peep from the CORE confederates yet, but their Board is meeting today.

If the governor signs AB 484 as is, will it cost the CORE districts money? LAUSD’s Deasy implied as much when he “furiously” told Ed Week that he’d be forced to go to his board for money to run the usual tests. I’ve only read the Exec Summary of the CORE waiver, but it seems that both its School Quality Improvement System options for “…evaluating teacher effectiveness” require use of student performance / test results .  So if the state isn’t footing the bill for the traditional tests, and the test results are required for the waiver, how does CORE pay the testing bill?

Might be that the eight CORE districts are not going to get away with having their cake and eating it too.

Tell it, sister!

I just wish the “anger and resentment” Carol Burris references in this Answer Sheet post were more obvious here in San Francisco. And what a dream to think of any SFUSD administrator giving voice to such descriptions of clothing optional – emperors. Maybe when the evaluation component of the CORE waiver becomes known things will heat up.

“And that is why educators across the country are boiling over in anger and resentment. They have become the proverbial scapegoat set out in the desert with the sins of a society in denial on its back. Of course billionaires and hedge-fund managers adore these new ‘reforms’—they tell them what they want to hear. The myth that ‘three effective teachers in a row’ will make it all better, removes the responsibility and the culpability.   Reformers can put tax deductible dollars on the table, take out the tux and gown for the fundraiser, and claim they are ‘all about the kids’.  And with those dollars they fashion reforms that will not threaten their lifestyles, the private schools to which they send their own children, or the segregated neighborhoods in which they live.” [Via: the Answer Sheet.]

Another nail in the leaky coffin I leave behind

Word is out at a comprehensive high school near the bay that next year those lazy, disorganized, standard-less teachers (even the word-weak math and science types) must display a “daily language objective” (DLO?) on their blackboards, or green boards, or white boards, or websites, or weblogs, or projection screens, or interactive projection screens, or maybe just on their foreheads.

A daily Language Objective is important … Please consider how the four domains (listening,speaking, reading, writing) are integrated in [sic] your lesson. By articulating what language skills students are expected to use in this lesson, you will be able to break down the steps so more students will be able to access the content. In this example, asking students to compare and contrast is a common skill required by various content areas. By teaching students the words which signal comparison (similarly, in addition, moreover,…) or contrast (although, however, but,…), they will be able to identify these words and concepts while reading, and also use them when writing.

The new DLO requirement will appear in the bay-side school’s Prince_Of_Pals’ expectations for 2013-2014. Like all royal expectations, it may lead to some disappointment when the Prince and his court enter DLO-less classrooms within their four domains. What to do about disappointment? Ah-hah! The palace decree includes integration of the DLO requirement into (in?) the lazy, disorganized, standard-less teachers’ summative evaluations. The disorganized dismissed, disappointment will be assuaged.

Worth repeating this:

“When the [reformers] say that instruction must be ‘evidence-based,’ and ‘data-driven,’ they don’t mean that schools and teachers should be guided by statistical studies. When they say ‘data-driven,’ they mean breaking down jobs into tasks, breaking tasks into components, and then measuring and quantifying each component to develop target work norms. The norms are used to establish new conditions of work and workplace discipline. These are used to impose scripted learning, narrow ‘teach to the test’ curricula, canned software, and cyber-schools.” Jack Gerson, “The Neo Liberal Agenda and Teachers’ Unions,” in  The Assault on Public Education, p. 110.

Best comment heard so far about the “Hall way”

Charles Pierce: “…the standardized test… is the collateralized debt obligation of the education ‘reform’ scam.” The metaphor breaks down when you realize that Beverly Hall is looking at 45 years  in jail while Steven A. Cohen is looking at Picassos on his new Hamptons mansion’s wall.

Our cheated hearts

A colleague points at this NYT story about the “cheating Hart” of educational reform in Atlanta. Quote: “‘Principals and teachers were frequently told by Beverly Hall and her subordinates that excuses for not meeting targets would not be tolerated,’ the indictment said.” It’s just one scene in a long story now well plotted for every school in the country. The real bomb blast would be getting the goods on Michelle Rhee during her time in D.C., but my guess is that is not going to happen. If such a blast does go off, it will be in part thanks to the efforts of retired teacher b.F. Brandenberg. Even if it does, Atlanta-like pressures and behaviors have arrived much closer to home. Rhee’s got California in her sights and she just hired a very smart teacher union turncoat as an advisor.

A different colleague pointed out that all SFUSD asst. superintendents will be held accountable for “expected test score gains” for the next year. And those asst. sup’s will, in turn, expect the specific score gains from the site principals. The principals in turn will … well, you get the picture. The neat twist is that the principals, co-opted to infantilize themselves, will get to set their site’s specific targets for 2014-15 . They’ll collaborate with this top down nonsense by leading rushed and uninformed School Site Councils to complete revised Balanced Score Card plans. Read pages 7, 8 and 9 of this PDF and look for the word “target.” This is coming right out of Michelle Rhee’s playbook in D.C. And our toadying site leaders will use the targets as arrows to hit autonomous teachers wherever they can.

And of course, it’s not just San Francisco. CORE’s 10 urban districts got approval for their Race to the Top waiver and that means some kind of value added measures for teacher evaluation is on the horizon for all 10 districts.

To steal a line from tomorrow night’s HBO series, “Winter is coming.” And me? I’m heading south!

Excellent choice.

So Arnie and company have decided to turn down Torlakson’s reasonable request for a waiver to the unrealistic requirements of NCLB. The 70% of our state’s schools currently labelled as being “out of compliance” with NCLB demands will rise. And then the powers-that-aren’t will use that increase to prove further systemic failure and to require even more compliance to unreasonable requirements.

The sticking point with the Feds is of course Value Added Measures (VAM) for teacher evaluations. Torkakson et al. resisted what Bruce D. Bakers calls VAM’s “forced choice between ‘bad’ measure and ‘wrong’ ones.” But what about this CORE group (site is temporarily down for maintenance), with SFUSD part of the pack? What will their inevitable request to Arnie for a “district waiver” entail? My guess is that CTA and CFT will be happy to collaborate with the 10 districts to serve up something like the LA agreement. (The two unions act more and more like a waiter at a really cheap, really bad all-you-can-eat buffet, leaning over as we dip a spoon into the grey-green Swedish meatballs and murmuring soothingly, “Excellent choice, if I do say so myself.”) Is the LA deal on test score inclusion any better than the NY State evaluation system?  I’m no Bruce D. Baker (and boy do we need a California version of Bruce D.), but I’d bet a career’s  supply of grey-green Swedish meatballs that Academic Growth over Time (AGT) is as stupid as all the other VAM scams.