The Exaggerations of TFA

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A former TFA'er digs into some wild TFA claims

In response to critics that TFA teachers don’t have enough long-term impact, TFA replies with the statement from their annual survey “Nearly two-thirds of Teach For America alumni work in the field of education, and half of those in education are teachers. Teaching remains the most common profession among our alumni.”

Now a statement like this is pretty strong and probably shuts up those critics, though it also probably leaves them scratching their heads. How could this statement possibly be true?

[readon2 url="http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2011/05/07/two-out-of-three-aint-bad-but-is-it-true/"]Keep reading...[/readon2]

This week in education cuts

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We continue our series of reporting all the local media news related to school budget issues.

Saturday, May 14th, 2011

Sunday, May 15th, 2011

Monday, May 16th, 2011

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

Thursday, May 19th, 2011

Fridday, May 20th, 2011

There's nothing Super about charters

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We were going to write a review and mythbusting article on the movie "Waiting for Superman", today. But our friends at American Society Today have a piece that says everything that needs to be said. It's good. Real good.

The propagandistic nature of Waiting for “Superman” is revealed by Guggenheim’s complete indifference to the wide variation among charter schools. There are excellent charter schools, just as there are excellent public schools. Why did he not also inquire into the charter chains that are mired in unsavory real estate deals, or take his camera to the charters where most students are getting lower scores than those in the neighborhood public schools? Why did he not report on the charter principals who have been indicted for embezzlement, or the charters that blur the line between church and state? Why did he not look into the charter schools whose leaders are paid $300,000–$400,000 a year to oversee small numbers of schools and students?

[readon2 url="http://americansocietytoday.blogspot.com/search/label/Waiting%20for%20Superman"]Continue reading...[/readon2]

Waiting for a Governor who gets it

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Tonight's a big night for the Governor. He's having a movie night with Michele Rhee, the controversial former chancellor of D.C. schools and Margaret Spellings, the Secretary of Education under President George W. Bush for yet another showing of “Waiting for Superman”.

You would think this corporate reformers night out would be about education policy, but it's not as the Dispatch reports

John Kasich's next Waiting for "Superman" showing could have a campaign feel to it.

Kasich invited his supporters through a campaign email to host viewing parties Thursday at the time of his showing of the pro-school-choice documentary in Cleveland.

"Last year, many of you hosted house parties during the campaign and invited your friends and family to attend," the email reads. "We encourage you to consider hosting a party for this exciting event."

You do get the sense that politics always comes before education with this gang.

They are even recruiting state employees to act as movie night ushers, but as OEA reports, teachers not invited.

The Kasich plan is to hold the live event in Cleveland, plus regional screenings and events in six other Ohio cities, webcasting the panel discussion to those locations and on the internet. They’ve done this before, and they will take questions via Facebook and Twitter. Needless to say, the Ohio Education Association was not asked to join the webcast panel of speakers, but we would like our members and supporters to ask questions and make comments.

When these three – Spellings, Rhee and Kasich – get together, you can expect lots of cheerleading for charter schools, private school vouchers, performance pay based on test scores and strict limits on the unions that represent public school employees.

Since you're not invited, please take a few moments to instead ask the Governor questions on his Facebook or Twitter Pages.

We also urge you to use the Educator Connector (dial toll-free 1-888-907-7309) to contact Ohio state senators and ask them to:

  • Dump the anti-union provisions they copied from Senate Bill 5 out of the Ohio budget bill (HB 153)
  • Start figuring out how to restore the $3.1 billion in resources lost to Ohio school districts due to this budget.

Don't be silent!

SB5, Issue campaigns and Polls

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There's a long way to go before SB5 is repealed. What may currently feel like a wind to your back can suddenly reveal itself to be a maelstrom instead. With today's polling news that Ohioans overwhelmingly favor repealing SB5, we thought it would be a good idea to cover some election basics.

Right now we are collecting signatures to place the repeal of SB5 on the November 2011 ballot. We need 231,000 verified signatures, which means we need a lot more than that in reality, conservatively, 50% more. But. Each person who signs a SB5 repeal petition is almost as good as a vote, so the more signatures collected the better our chances in November.

November 2011 would be a very low turnout election year under most circumstances, with no major offices on the ballot to attract people to the polls. A similar past year, 2007 saw only 31.34% of registered voters cast a ballot, compared to 53.25% in 2006 and 69.97% in 2008.

Given this, the first thing to bare in mind is that there is a great difference between a voter and a registered voter. A lot of registered voters do not actually vote! In off-cycle election years like 2011 it could be about 2/3 of registered voters who stay home on election day. There are a few lessons to be learned from this simple and obvious fact.

  1. When reading polls be careful to consider if they are of registered voters (RV), or have been screened for likely voters(LV).
    Today's Quinnipiac poll is of registered voters, as will most polls be until after Labor Day when it becomes easier to gauge a persons likelihood to vote
  2. Getting your supporters to actually go vote (GOTV) is crucial to success.
    We need to turn as many registered voters into actual voters on election day in November. The best way to do that right now is to collect signatures. Lots and lots of them.

Back to polling. We all know about sampling errors and margin of error, but you should also be aware that it is very hard to accurately poll issue campaigns, and even harder to do so in low turnout elections. Two recent examples from Ohio demonstrate this quite well.

In 2005 a group of people attempted to reform Ohio's election and redistricting laws. Right before the election the Bliss Institute polled the issues and found

State Issue Two (Absentee Balloting)
Favor: 63.8%
Oppose: 36.2%

State Issue Three (Campaign Contributions)
Favor: 61.2%
Oppose: 38.8%

State Issue Four (Nonpartisan Redistricting)
Favor: 43.5%
Oppose: 56.5%

State Issue Five (Role of Secretary of State)
Favor: 42.5%
Oppose: 57.5%

The Dispatch found similar results. All 4 issues lost just a few days later by massive 2:1 margins. The polling was way off.

In 2006 a coalition similar to the SB5 coalition put a minimum wage initiative on the ballot. It won 57%-43%, but in a NYT/CBS poll just 2 weeks earlier it enjoyed over 77% support.

The bottom line -

  • We have to work hard now, to collect as many signatures as possible
  • We have to work hard through the summer and fall to talk to voters and convince them that repealing SB5 is the right thing to do
  • In the closing month of the election get as many people to vote early as possible
  • On election day, get as many supporters of repeal to the polls as possible

That's a lot of work. Ready for it?