Education based on fictional movies

We recently ran a 3 part series, taking a look at the Gates Foundations corrosive impact on public education, which you can read here:
Part I
Part II
Part III
The Wall Street Journal had an interview with Bill Gates over the weekend, confirming many of the facts we brought to your attention

One of the foundation's main initial interests was schools with fewer students. In 2004 it announced that it would spend $100 million to open 20 small high schools in San Diego, Denver, New York City and elsewhere. Such schools, says Mr. Gates, were designed to—and did—promote less acting up in the classroom, better attendance and closer interaction with adults.

"But the overall impact of the intervention, particularly the measure we care most about—whether you go to college—it didn't move the needle much," he says.

What follows in this article is deeply disturbing. Mr. Gates, seemingly from watching some fictional movies about teaching, now believes he should experiment with teachers careers and students learnging

"I watched the movies. I saw 'To Sir, With Love,'" he chuckles, recounting the 1967 classic in which Sidney Poitier plays an idealistic teacher who wins over students at a roughhouse London school. "But they didn't really explain what he was doing right. I can't create a personnel system where I say, 'Go watch this movie and be like him.'"

The article goes on to discuss his various classroom experiements, and denigrates teachers associations as standing for "the status quo" - which apperently means opposing Bill Gates movie based reforms. Most corporate eduction reformers come to the table with the same resume. Little or no education experience or expertise, a business background, an unwillingness to listen to anyone else, and to attack experts in the field as supporting the status quo. Bill Gates is no different, but what is different is his ability to wield hundreds of millions of dollars to get his way.

It's a pity Gates didn't get inspired by "Armageddon" or some other Sci-Fi movie, becuase then, instead of wrecking public education, he could be spending his money helping to build a replacement for the now retired Space Shuttle.

Repealing SB5 isn't partisan, it's personal

Yesterday, over 600 labor leaders packed the pipefitters union hall on Kinnear Road in Columbus to discuss the next phase of the repeal effort. What is becoming clearer and clearer with each passing moment is the shear scale of the opposition to SB5. It was a mid July day with temperatures soaring over 100 degrees, yet people had come together in their hundreds for a closed to the press event, whose nature might usually attract only 30.

It's not just the numbers that should cause supporters of SB5 to take stock, but the breadth of opposition. The gathering represented over 2 million members, from public and private sector unions. While much focus has been placed on the direct assault on teachers, police and fire, private sector allies have stepped up and into the fray too, to lend their considerable support.

Everyone recognizing SB5 for what it is, a direct and indirect assault on working men and women in Ohio.

As if to punctuate this huge gathering, it happened, by coincidence, on the same the day that Secretary of State John Husted certified that voters would guaranteed the opportunity to repeal SB5 in November on the back of a record breaking signature collection effort

Secretary of State Jon Husted certified a state-record 915,456 valid signatures collected by a coalition seeking to repeal the Republican-backed law that weakens collective bargaining for public employees. Only 231,147 were needed to place a referendum on the ballot.

On June 29, We Are Ohio, the coalition opposed to Senate Bill 5, delivered nearly 1.3 million signatures to Husted's office for validation -- smashing the previous state record. Those signatures were shipped to their respective county boards of election for initial validation, and Husted was responsible for final certification.

In addition to cruising past the threshold for total number of valid signatures, We Are Ohio also collected signatures equal to 3 percent of the total vote cast in last year's gubernatorial election in all 88 counties -- which campaign spokesman Melissa Fazekas said was also a first in Ohio history.

The effort isn't massive because it's partisan, we see that all the time, it's massive because for millions of workers from across the political spectrum, it is personal.

Racing to the bottom by firing experience

With Ohio on the verge of adopting the worst aspects of Washington DC's teacher evaluation and merit pay system, more concerning revelations continue to surface. It's no secret that DC public schools were embroiled in a test cheating scandal under the leadership of corporate education reformer Michele Rhee. Now those falsified test results might be causing good teachers to lose their jobs

Student test scores from 100 District of Columbia public schools still under investigation for cheating were used in value-added calculations that were incorporated into some teachers' evaluations this year, according to DCPS spokesperson Fred Lewis. More than 200 D.C. teachers were terminated last week on the basis of their evaluation results.

Previously inflated student achievements are now falling back to earth, and the teachers tasked with catching them are being held responsible for the lower scores now legitimately being measured. In some cases, this is causing teachers evaluations to fall into the dangerous categories of being ineffective - where they are subject to dismissal.

When asked whether there was any chance the appeal decision could be made before the 2011-2012 school year begins, Lewis said:

"No, unfortunately, the appeals decisions will not be made before the beginning of the year. While this would be ideal, the window to file an appeal must be at least 30 days, which is after the first day of school. We also want to make sure we have all necessary evidence in order to ensure the process is comprehensive and fair. We do not want to rush."

Now that Washington DC is a few years into it's regular mass firing of teachers, recently released data from Department of Education shows an alarming result

Almost half of Washington DC's teachers have 2 years or less experience! Does anyone still think corporate education reform and "teacher accountability" is about putting "Students First"? Or do we think administrators faced with harsh budget conditions are looking for any means possible to relieve themselves of more experienced and higher paid teaching professionals?

Left unchecked, Ohio's public education system will be in a race to the bottom, with students being served by teachers with little experience, few mentors, low pay, and all in a high pressure vocation. It may be a cheaper way to deliver "education", but at what true cost?

Time for Governor Kasich to listen

We became aware of the Governor's office standing up some central Ohio teachers yesterday, for what was supposed to be a meeting to discuss new school funding formulas.

Columbus teachers who were present have a great write up of the incident. More troubling that some meeting mix-up however is the ongoing pattern of trying to avoid real meaningful teacher input

While the anatomy of the new school funding formula has yet to be determined, the governor’s spokesperson has gone on record saying the new model will be contain the “over-arching principal of driving more money into the classroom.” Mattei-Smith scheduled five meetings over a two-week period inviting teachers, superintendents and principals, but failed to include teacher-leaders from the Ohio Education Association or the Ohio Federation of Teachers until much later in the process.

This meeting information was initially only shared with administrative groups and not with the teacher organizations (OEA and OFT). Information about these series of meetings was only received after “prodding” Barbara Mattei-Smith for it.

What is currently passing for education policy and its development is a shambles. There simply cannot be any meaningful progress without serious consultation with teaching professionals. Attempts to craft policy without broad consultation is going to lead to terrible policy being made that is harmful to public education in Ohio, and the students who are served by it.

It's time for the Governor to personally meet with teachers associations and spend some time listening to professionals who are on the front lines of delivering quality public education every day. He then needs to take what he hears seriously.

New Poll: SB5 is a referendum on Kasich

A new poll released by Quinnipiac continues to show massive support for the repeal of SB5, indeed the margin of dissatisfaction with this middle-class busting law is growing and now stands at 56% - 32%.

Tracking our recent anaylsis showing that SB5 could turn Governor Kasich into a lame duck, the same poll shows his unpopularity rising to 50%

"Kasich has until 2014 when he presumably will face the voters, to turn his political fortunes around, but the timeline for the vote on SB5, which is obviously a referendum on the governor's agenda, is much shorter," said Brown. "A loss on SB5 would be a no confidence vote on the governor from the voters of Ohio."

Below are the polling trends for SB5.

Poll	For SB5	Against SB5
PPP Mar 15th	31%	54%
Wenzel Apr 12th	38%	51%
Quinnipiac May 18th	36%	54%
PPP May 25th	35%	55%
Quinnipiac Jul 20th	32%	56%

None of this means the effort to repeal SB5 should let up. Things could change quickly if supporters of repeal become complacent.

National Research Council Gives High-Stakes Testing an F

The long experiment with incentives and test-based accountability has so far failed to boost student achievement.

That’s the conclusion of a comprehensive examination of education research by the National Research Council , an arm of the National Academies of Science.

“The available evidence does not give strong support for the use of test-based incentives to improve education,” the NRC concluded. The benefits of these incentives, the group said, have been “small or nonexistent.”

The NRC report is the latest of a long series of research summaries by eminent, mainstream test experts concluding that there is no scientific basis for the current heavy reliance on high-stakes tests for measuring student achievement, teacher quality, and school performance.

The full report can be read here.

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