In This Issue:
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TURKEY
ISSUES ARREST WARRANT FOR U.S. BASED ISLAMIC CLERIC …WHO JUST HAPPENS
TO BE THE LARGEST CHARTER SCHOOL PROMOTER IN THE U.S. |
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WHISTLEBLOWER CASE COSTS LAUSD A $3.3 MILLION JURY AWARD + smf’s [less than] 2¢ |
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PUNISHED
TEACHER IN CLASS AGAIN: Eight-month exile over fundraising spotlights
union and district differences on the issue of discipline |
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From the wonderful folks who drew the FBI to LAUSD: PREPARING FOR A RENAISSANCE IN ASSESSMENT |
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HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but
not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources |
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EVENTS: Coming up next week... |
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What can YOU do? |
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Featured Links:
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Tip O’Neill said that all politics is local – and I
believe that the most powerful+local political dynamic is that at the
school site. The teachers and the parents and the students and the
administrators; the credentialed and the certificated and the neighbors
and the community and real estate agents. The agendas and the policies
and the politics and the pedagogy and the curriculum and the PTA. ¡C’mon
down!
Of course, we occasionally wander off campus and the school board gets
involved in the minimum wage of hotel workers. The puzzle pieces involve
immigration policy and international publishing cartels and
billionaires with too many billions and too much time on their hands
…surely everything that’s wrong with education can be fixed with a
better algorithm. Or another model from business school.
LAST WEEK’S NEWS was all about foreign policy. Cuba. Russia. Pakistan. North Korean cinema criticism.
(I grew up in Hollywood and worked in The Biz; no one ever anticipated
that a squabble between a Japanese Keiretsu and the [nuclear armed]
Hermit Kingdom would be fought in cyberspace and the Hollywood Trades
with the White House questioning the film distribution strategies of
studio executives? I recommend: “This -- THIS? -- is what led to an
international incident?”| http://lat.ms/1Ar2OZr to put it all in perspective.)
LOCAL POLITICS GOES GLOBAL: Quietly fulminating on the local and foreign
policy scene, tangled up in the geopolitics of the Middle East and the
School ®eform Movement – with a foray into immigration policy – is the
story of Fethullah Gülen, the government of Turkey and the operation of
the largest chain of charter schools in the United States.
As Seth Rogan – or is it James Franco? - would say: “Whatttt????”
SIMPLY: Fethullah Gülen is an Islamic Cleric who lives in Pennsylvania
and is the promoter and/or founder of 130 Charter Schools in the United
States, which makes him the biggest charter school entrepreneur in the
country. Bigger than Green Dot or KIPP. Magnolia Charters in Los
Angeles? That’s him!
• There are some that say that he teaches religion in his schools; he denies it.
• There are some that contend he illegally imports teachers from Turkey to teach in his schools; he denies it.
• LAUSD recently pulled the plug on a couple of his schools for fiscal impropriety. http://bit.ly/1ClbL6a
• Oh, and Tayyip Erdogan, the President of Turkey, says that Gülen is
secretly plotting to overthrow the Turkish Government in a coup– and has
sworn out an arrest warrant against him. Today the AYP, Tomorrow the
World!
Now President Erdogan isn’t necessarily a nice man …
FDR’s Secretary of State, Sumner Welles, once said "[Nicaraguan
dictator] Somoza's a bastard!" And Roosevelt replied, "Yes, but he's our
bastard."
….and Fethullah Gülen doesn’t look like a Central Casting
wild-eyed+bearded radical Muslim cleric – (he quotes Gandhi and MLK …but
so did Dr. Deasy) …but let me just say that this is all very curious.
And it gets curiouser and curiouser with every passing day.
YOU MAY HAVE READ in these pages- or elsewhere - about the former LAUSD
risk management consultant who is suing the District for firing him when
he blew the whistle on alleged improprieties in the Miramonte
settlement. That case drags on, all suit and countersuit; but last week
the District lost a $3.3 million whistleblower and
defamation-of-character lawsuit over improprieties at Poly High – a case
that features some familiar figures – and more loose ends than a grass
skirt.
Happy Holidays Everyone - and Happy New Year. If you believe in such things, please say a prayer for Peace. With apologies to John+Paul: It's getting better all the time.
I used to get mad at my school (No I can't complain)
The teachers who taught me weren't cool (No I can't complain)
You're holding me down (Oh), turning me round (Oh)
Filling me up with your rules (Foolish rules)
I've got to admit it's getting better (Better)
A little better all the time (It can't get more worse)
¡Onward/Adelante! - smf
TURKEY ISSUES ARREST WARRANT FOR U.S. BASED ISLAMIC
CLERIC …WHO JUST HAPPENS TO BE THE LARGEST CHARTER SCHOOL PROMOTER IN
THE U.S.
●●smf: This is a great story, filled with lovely complications and
international intrigue. The regime in Turkey is no more a wellspring of
western secular democracy than Fethullah Gülen is a wild eyed bearded
mullah. Instead we have nuance and politics and power and money: This
is the New Byzantium.
P.S.: The Magnolia Charter Schools in LAUSD are affiliated with Gülen.
►TURKEY ISSUES ARREST WARRANT FOR U.S. BASED ISLAMIC CLERIC
By Ece Toksabay, Reuters | from WorldPost: a partnership of The Huffington Post & Berggruen Institute on Governance | http://huff.to/1ABl3K0
12/19/2014 8:34 am EST Updated: 10:30 AM | ISTANBUL, (Reuters) ::
Turkish authorities are seeking an arrest warrant for U.S.-based Muslim
cleric Fethullah Gulen whom President Tayyip Erdogan accuses of trying
to undermine Turkey and overthrow him, a government official said on
Friday.
The issue of a warrant would take Erdogan's campaign to root out Gulen
supporters, including purges of the judiciary and police, to the
international arena potentially testing already strained relations with
Washington.
Gulen has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999. He was
a close ally of Erdogan in the early years after his ruling AK Party
took power in 2002 but has been in open conflict with him since a graft
investigation emerged a year ago targeting the then-prime minister's
inner circle.
Erdogan portrays the investigation as part of a coup attempt and
describes Gulen's followers as traitors and terrorists - all charges
that Gulen, who runs a vast network of schools and business enterprises
in Turkey and abroad, denies.
Turkish courts have dropped the corruption cases, critics at home and in
the West citing that as evidence Erdogan is stripping the judiciary of
its independence.
Asked about a report that a warrant had been issued, a government
official, requesting anonymity, told Reuters: "There is no decision yet.
The prosecutor has made a request and the judge is evaluating it."
It was not immediately clear on what specific grounds the warrant was being requested.
If it is forthcoming, Turkish authorities would be free to apply to the
United States for extradition, with no guarantee of success. Erdogan's
image in the West, once that of a moderate reformer, has been eroded as
his open intolerance of opposition and of criticism has grown.
A Turkish court on Friday kept a media executive close to Gulen and
three other people in custody pending trial on accusations of belonging
to a terrorist group, in a case which Erdogan has defended as a response
to "dirty operations" by his enemies.
Hidayet Karaca heads Samanyolu Television which is close to Gulen.
The European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join, has said last
weekend's police raids to detain Karaca and other media workers was
contrary to European values. Erdogan told the bloc to mind its own
business.
Ekrem Dumanli, editor-in-chief of the Gulen-linked Zaman newspaper, was
released but forbidden from traveling abroad before trial. Seven more
people whom prosecutors sought remanded in custody in the case were also
released pending trial.
●(Additional reporting by Gulsen Solaker in Ankara and Ayla Jean Yackley
in Istanbul; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Nick Tattersall, Ralph
Boulton)
_____________
►120 AMERICAN CHARTER SCHOOLS AND ONE SECRETIVE TURKISH CLERIC: The FBI
is investigating a group of educators who are followers of a mysterious
Islamic movement. But the problems seem less related to faith than to
the oversight of charter schools.
By Scott Beauchamp | The Atlantic | http://theatln.tc/1DSGA6s
Aug 12 2014, 11:25 AM ET :: It reads like something out of a John Le
Carre novel: The charismatic Sunni imam Fethullah Gülen, leader of a
politically powerful Turkish religious movement likened by The Guardian
to an “Islamic Opus Dei,” occasionally webcasts sermons from
self-imposed exile in the Poconos while his organization quickly grows
to head the largest chain of charter schools in America. It might sound
quite foreboding—and it should, but not for the reasons you might think.
<
You can be excused if you’ve never heard of Fethullah Gülen or his
eponymous movement. He isn’t known for his openness, despite the size of
his organization, which is rumored to have between 1 and 8 million
adherents. It’s difficult to estimate the depth of its bench, however,
without an official roster of membership. Known informally in Turkey as
Hizmet, or “the service”, the Gülen movement prides itself on being a
pacifist, internationalist, modern, and moderate alternative to more
extreme derivations of Sunni Islam. The group does emphasize the
importance of interfaith dialogue, education, and a kind of
cosmopolitanism. One prominent sociologist described it as “the world’s
most global movement.”
Singling out the Gülen schools as particularly nefarious, simply for being run by Muslims, smacks of xenophobia.
Much of the praise for the Gülen movement comes from its emphasis on
providing education to children worldwide. In countries like Pakistan,
its schools often serve as an alternative to more fundamentalist
madrassas. Gülen schools enroll an estimated two million students around
the globe, usually with English as the language of instruction, and the
tuition is often paid in full by the institution. In Islamic countries,
where the Gülen schools aren’t entirely secular: The New York Times
reported that in many of the Pakistani schools, “…teachers encourage
Islam in their dormitories, where teachers set the example in lifestyle
and prayers.” But the focus is still largely on academics. Fethullah
Gülen put it in one of his sermons, “Studying physics, mathematics, and
chemistry is worshipping Allah.”
In Western countries such as the United States, Germany, and France,
there isn’t any evidence whatsoever that the nearly 120 Gülen charter
schools in America include Islamic indoctrination in their curriculum.
The schools are so secular that singling out the Gülen schools as
particularly nefarious, simply for being run predominantly by Muslims,
smacks of xenophobia.
However, these schools might be suspect for reasons that are completely
unrelated to Islamic doctrine. One of their most troubling
characteristics is that they don’t have a great track record when it
comes to financial and legal transparency. In Utah, a financial probe
launched by the Utah Schools Charter Board found the Beehive Science and
Technology Academy, a Gülen-run charter school, to be nearly $350,000
in debt. Furthermore, as the Deseret News reported, the school’s
administrators seemed to be reserving coveted jobs for their own
countrymen and women: “In a time of teacher layoffs, Beehive has
recruited a high percentage of teachers from overseas, mainly Turkey.”
Even more unnervingly, the school’s money—public funds from the local
community—was being donated to Gülen-affiliated organizations and used
to pay the cost of bringing teachers to Utah from Turkey. To illustrate
the level of fiscal mismanagement, the school spent about 50 cents to
pay the immigration costs of foreign teachers for every dollar that it
spent on textbooks. In 2010, after being the first charter school in
Utah history to be shuttered, Beehive appealed the decision and was
reopened the same year.
There are similar stories from other states. In Texas, where 33 Gülen
charter schools receive close to $100 million a year in taxpayer funds,
the New York Times reported in 2011 that two schools had given $50
million to Gülen-connected contractors, including the month-old Atlas
Texas Construction and Training, even though other contractors had
offered lower bids. It was the same thing in Georgia, where Fulton
County audited three Gülen schools after allegations that they’d skipped
the bidding process altogether and paid nearly half a million dollars
to organizations associated with the Gülen movement.
The Gülen movement is known for its secrecy. But when it comes to the
Gülen charter schools, the lack of transparency is part of a larger
problem that has nothing to do with the Turkish-based organization.
Diane Ravitch, education professor at New York University and Assistant
Secretary of Education under George H.W. Bush, writes about this larger
transparency issue in her latest book, Reign of Error, explaining, “In
2009, New York Charter School Association successfully sued to prevent
the state comptroller from auditing the finances of charter schools,
even though they receive public funding. The association contended that
charter school’s are not government agencies but ‘non-profit educational
corporations carrying out a public purpose.’” The New York State Court
of Appeals agreed with the organization in a 7 to 0 vote. It took an act
of legislation from the state—specifically designed to allow the
comptroller to audit charter schools—for this to change.
Ravitch also writes of a similar instance in North Carolina in which the
state, urged on by lobbying giant ALEC (American Legislative Exchange
Council), proposed the creation of a special commission, composed
entirely of charter school advocates, as a way for charter schools to
bypass the oversight of the State Board of Education or the local school
boards. Ravitch writes, “The charters would not be required to hire
certified teachers. Charter school staff would not be required to pass
criminal background checks. The proposed law would not require any
checks for conflicts of interest—not for commission members or for the
charter schools.” In other words, it isn’t the Gülen movement that makes
Gülen charter schools so secretive. It’s the charter school movement
itself.
This comes across in the latest news story related to the Gülen schools:
an FBI raid last month on the headquarters of over 19 Gülen-operated
Horizon Science Academies in Midwest. According to search warrants
obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times, federal authorities were interested
in gathering general financial documents and records of communication.
The warrant specifically mentions something called the E-rate program—a
federal program that, according to the Sun-Times, “pays for schools to
expand telecommunications and Internet access.” A handful of the
Gülen-affiliated contractors assisting the schools were receiving money
from this federal fund. It’s difficult speculate what this could all
mean, as all documents pertaining to the investigation, save the
warrants themselves, have been sealed from the public.
It isn’t the Gülen movement that makes Gülen charter schools so secretive. It’s the charter school movement itself.
Meanwhile, the Ohio State Board of Education has launched its own probe
of the nearly 20 Gülen-associated charter schools in its state. As part
of the investigation, four former teachers from Horizon Academy (the
particular name of the Gülen charter school chain in Ohio) gave
testimony. The teachers mentioned issues as disturbing as cheating on
state tests, unsafe building conditions, overcrowding, and even sexual
misconduct. One of the teachers, Matthew Blair, had previously tried to
contact the state’s Department of Education in order to file complaints,
but hadn’t heard back from officials. Board president Debe Terhar
assured the teachers, “Your concerns have not fallen on deaf ears. We
hear you, and we will move forward with making sure this thing is
investigated.”
I contacted Matthew Blair, and he told me that the problems with the
Gülen schools were merely symptomatic of a larger problem within the
state’s education system. “The charter school system in Ohio is broken
beyond repair,” he wrote in an email. “As it is, charter schools operate
in a lawless frontier. Regulations are few and far between. Those that
exist are consistently and consciously overlooked.”
The Gülen schools, he wrote, “are an excellent example” of this problem:
“A Gülen organization controls the real estate companies that own their
schools. They charge rent to their own schools and tax-payers foot the
bill. They refuse to answer public records requests, falsify attendance
records, and cheat on standardized tests. Yet, Ohio continues to grant
them charters to operate.” He added, “It doesn't hurt that the Gülen
organization is politically active and treats state politicians to
lavish trips abroad.” But overall, he said, “this Wild West atmosphere
of few regulations creates incestuous relationships among politicians,
vendors, and schools. Charter schools like Gülen's give generously. In
return, they are allowed to keep their saloons open and serve whatever
they want. The only way to save the charter school system is to start
over again by using the model of effective public schools.”
They participate in a system that gives every incentive to keep their financial dealings under wraps.
The Gülen movement insists that the accusations against are the result
of gross exaggeration or outright falsehood. Websites like
Gulenschools.org and hizmetchronicle.com defend Gülen charter schools
from accusations of impropriety: aggregating positive news about the
schools, restating their mission in magnanimous language, and distancing
Fethullah Gülen himself from any of the legal proceedings or
investigations. One particular article quotes Gülen’s attorney, who
responds to (more) FBI raids on Gülen schools in Louisiana by reminding
readers that Gülen himself “is not the founder, shareholder, or
administrator of any school.”
But the problem with Gülen schools isn’t that they’re connected to a
particular religious movement (although some might object to public
funds making their way to any religious institution). The problem is
that they participate in a system that gives every incentive to keep
their financial dealings under wraps. Charter schools were designed to
provide a certain amount of autonomy, and many schools have successfully
walked the line between public responsibility and private innovation.
But there are vulnerabilities built into the system, and one is a
reduced oversight that enables schools to move vast amounts of public
funds into private hands. The Gülen movement, with its foreign origins
and mysterious leader, may make for a particular intriguing story.
But as the saying goes, “Don’t hate the player; hate the game.”
WHISTLEBLOWER CASE COSTS LAUSD A $3.3 MILLION JURY AWARD + smf’s [less than] 2¢
by Vanessa Romo, LA School Report | http://bit.ly/1wOSJo7
December 19, 2014 12:39 pm :: LA Unified sustained another legal blow
this week in a “whistleblower” case that’ll cost the district millions.
After nearly a month-long trial, a Los Angeles jury awarded retired Air
Force Officer and Junior ROTC instructor, Archie Roundtree, $3.3
million, finding that the district had revoked his teaching
certification in an act of retaliation.
This latest setback comes a month after the district announced a $139
million settlement in civil cases stemming from the actions of a former
teacher at Miramonte Elementary School.
Shortly after reporting a series of violations in the operation of the
JROTC program at John H. Francis Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley,
Chief Academic Officer Gerardo Loera began complaining to the Air Force
about the veteran instructor. The Air Force subsequently revoked
Roundtree’s 15-year certification to teach JROTC cadets.
According Renuka V. Jain, a lawyer who represented Roundtree, “The jury
awarded Roundtree $1,810,840 on the whistleblower claim, $1 million in
defamation damages against Loera, and $500,000 against Assistant
Vice-Principal Adriana Maldonado-Gomez. The jury also concluded that
Loera had acted with malice, oppression or fraud.”
“The settlement is good but he will never be able to get his
certification back,” Jain told LA School Report. “There is no appeal,
there is no review. The only people who can get it back is Air Force and
they’re not going to do that,” she said.
The district said in an email response it is “very disheartened” by the verdict.
“It is never the intention of the District or its administrators to
engage in defamation or retaliation against any employee for any
reason,” the district said. “While the jury found in favor of Major
Roundtree, the District believes and maintains that each of the
administrators’ actions were taken with the students’ interests at heart
and were not done in retaliation against Major Roundtree.”
The district is currently reviewing the record and considering its options with respect to any challenges to the verdict.
●●smf’s 2¢: I have some real problems with the reporting of this story – or perhaps the editing thereof.
● “Shortly after reporting a series of violations in the operation of
the JROTC program at John H. Francis Polytechnic High School in Sun
Valley….”: Because this is a whistle blower suit I presume that Major
Roundtree made the allegations - though to whom and what the allegations
were are totally unclear. Did he complain to LAUSD? To the Dept of the
Air Force? …and what exactly were the allegations? …and even more
critically: What is the timeline?
● “….Chief Academic Officer Gerardo Loera began complaining to the Air
Force about the veteran instructor”. Again, the timeline. Loera was
named Chief Academic Officer on December 1, less than a month ago. The
trial was “nearly a month long” so one must suppose that Loera’s action
took place previous to him holding that job.
• Loera’s previous job was Executive Director, Office of Curriculum,
Instruction and School Support - where he was often called upon to be
the administration’s thankless+unthanked mouthpiece re: the CCTP (iPads)
and MiSiS.
• Before that he was Jaime Aquino’s deputy when Aquino was Deputy Supe for Curriculum and Instruction.
• And before that Leora was Principal of John H. Frances Polytechnic
High School – a/k/a Poly High. (I had a girlfriend who went to Poly –
that’s a very complicated story!)
• And as for “Assistant Vice-Principal Adriana Maldonado-Gomez” …that
is a new job title to me. We now have Assistant Principals – and back in
my misspent youth there were Vice Principals …but….. Ms
Maldonado-Gomez is currently on the faculty of Grant High School as an
Assistant Principal
PUNISHED TEACHER IN CLASS AGAIN: Eight-month exile
over fundraising spotlights union and district differences on the issue
of discipline
By Howard Blume | LA Times | http://lat.ms/1wbn8bf
Published online Dec 17, 2014/In print Dec 21, 2014 :: A popular
South Gate Middle School teacher returned to the classroom Wednesday,
eight months after he was pulled from campus for alleged financial
improprieties.
The case of Stuart Lutz, 60, became one more touchstone in the debate in
the Los Angeles Unified School District over "teacher jail," the
informal term for the administrative offices where instructors report
after they've been removed from their classrooms over allegations of
wrongdoing.
The teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles, has insisted that
teachers have been needlessly removed from classes, kept out of work for
unreasonable periods, overly punished for minor mistakes and wrongly
dismissed.
Lutz's experience underscores the question of whether administrators
unfairly took advantage of district policy to remove teachers who were
troublesome, but not necessarily guilty of substantial misconduct. Lutz
was the union representative for his school and had some disagreements
with the principal.
Lutz acknowledged Wednesday that he failed to follow proper procedures
for organizing and paying for field trips, but added that he and other
teachers had been operating this way for years without knowing any
better.
At the request of the union, L.A. schools Supt. Ramon Cortines agreed to
authorize a fresh and expedited look at the allegations and evidence
against Lutz, an art teacher who was involved in student activities.
"Under the new leadership of the district, intelligent minds have prevailed," said union Vice President Colleen Schwab.
Union President Alex Caputo-Pearl called the return of Lutz a "huge
breakthrough," but added that major differences remained in contract
negotiations that still could result in a strike. The union and the
district have agreed to fast-track negotiations, with meetings every
week, he said.
Lutz said his discipline ultimately consisted of a "conference memo," in
which an administrator explained what Lutz did incorrectly and how to
avoid such problems in the future. Such memos can lead to more serious
consequences if a mistake or misconduct is repeated.
The teacher praised "this wonderful outcome."
"It’s so great to know that so many people were working so hard on my
behalf for this homecoming," Lutz said. "I’m so happy to be back.”
Students also would be pleased, said Armando Chavez, 14, who was in Lutz's class last year.
"It was a lot of mayhem after they took him out, and a lot of things
were very different," said Armando, who is now in ninth grade at South
Gate High School. "We had about six substitutes for the rest of the
year."
The number of teachers and other employees who were removed from schools
ballooned to about 300 after the January 2012 arrest of former
third-grade teacher Mark Berndt for sexual misconduct at Miramonte
Elementary. Berndt eventually was sentenced to 25 years in prison. His
alleged victims received settlements totaling nearly $170 million.
That case and others prompted district officials, particularly
then-Supt. John Deasy, to take what they considered a safety-first
approach, both to limit potential harm to students and to limit
liability for the nation's second-largest school system. Other measures
included reviewing records going back decades to weed out possible past
or future offenders.
District officials have insisted that they want to treat teachers
fairly. They note that most teachers continue to be paid after they are
pulled from their classrooms. L.A. Unified also recently set up a
special unit of investigators to resolve sexual misconduct cases more
quickly. And teachers who have been removed from the classroom, who
formerly had to report to a district office during work hours, where
they did nothing, now can remain at home.
Union activists complained that such measures were insufficient because,
they said, allegations still resulted in a teacher being considered
guilty until proven innocent.
From the wonderful folks who drew the FBI to LAUSD:
PREPARING FOR A RENAISSANCE IN ASSESSMENT
By smf for 4LAKids
Sunday, 21 December, 2014 :: You have to give it to Pearson. No,
really…you have to! It’s in the contract. It’s embedded in the
standards and the NCLB waivers. .It’s in the stars.
They are the world’s largest publishing company. They are the world’s
largest textbook publishing company – which has the best
highest-on-investment of any kind of publishing save for printing money
itself. They apparently own the market in digital content publishing for
the Common Core State Standards with their Common Core System of
Courses – which may or may not actually exist – developed with start-up
money from the Los Angeles Unified School District, thank you very much.
Now they have a vision for the future, and in it they are the world’s largest testing company.
They have seen the future and it’s Pearson.
Last week Pearson’s Chief Education Advisor, Sir Michael Barber
and assessment expert, Dr Peter Hill, generated a report about this
bright new wonderful tomorrow. Their “essay” PREPARING FOR A RENAISSANCE
IN ASSESSMENT says that new technologies will transform assessment and
testing in education.
According to the authors:
• Adaptive testing (for example, tests that evolve in real time on
screen) will help generate more accurate tests and reduce the amount of
time schools spend on testing
• Smarter, automated marking of exams will help improve accuracy and reduce the time teachers spend marking “rote” answers
• Technology will help combine student performance across multiple papers and subjects.
• Assessment will provide on-going feedback, which, will help personalise teaching and improve learning.
• New digital technologies will minimise opportunities for cheating in exams or “gaming the system”.
• The essay argues that current assessment methods are no longer
working, so that even the top performing education systems in the world
have hit a performance ceiling.
The authors set out a ‘Framework for Action’ that details the steps that
should be taken for “policymakers, schools, school-system leaders and
other key players to prepare for the assessment renaissance”
The report is 88 pages under the Pearson imprint. 88 pages of research
an inch deep and a mile wide, reminiscent of every slick new modern
educational text you’ve ever seen – with pictures and graphs and text
boxes, all Helvetica and white space and more designed than written.
It is salesmanship pretending to be scholarship. Data masquerading as knowledge. Advertising making believe it is research.
In print I’m sure you can smell the shiny acid-free paper and soy based
ink – with a press run of varnish to make the pictures pop and blacks
truly black. You probably can’t smell the barnyard fecal matter at all.
You can read it here: http://bit.ly/1sVee79 And you should, because as an early reviewer writes: “… these are the people that the reformsters listen to. “
That reviewer, Peter Greene, who blogs a at http:// curmuducation.blogspot.com continues:
“…Let me just try to distill some of the big takeaways from Peter Hill
and Michael Barber's essay. Here are some important things to know about
what Pearson's brave new future education world would look like.
Welcome to the matrix: students will be plugged in
Pearson does not aspire to simply administer a high stakes test or two a
couple of times a year. Think of every sort of assessment you do, from
unit tests to small check quizzes to daily exercises for understanding.
Pearson wants all of that. All. Of. That. Every single bit of assessment
will generate data which will go straight into the Big Data Bank so
that a complete picture of the individual student can be created and
stored. I once noted that the Common Core standards make more sense if
viewed as data tags. I wrote that last March, but it still looks correct
to me.
The point of having everything done via internet-linked device is not
just to deliver instruction and assessment to the student-- it's to be
able to collect every bit of data that the student generates.
Through the use of rubrics, which will define performance in terms of a
hierarchically ordered set of levels representing increasing quality of
responses to specific tasks, and a common set of curriculum identifiers,
it will be possible to not only provide immediate feedback to guide
learning and teaching but also to build a digital record of achievement
that can be interrogated for patterns and used to generate
individualised and pictorial achievement maps or profiles
And Pearson is completely comfortable with assessment and instruction
centered on character traits, developing grit and tenacity and prudence
and the ability to work well with others. So their system will hoover
all that info up as well. By the time your child is eighteen, there will
be a complete profile, covering every aspect of her intellectual and
personal development. I wonder if Pearson would be able to make any
money selling that database to potential employers or to government
agencies. Hmmm...
Teachers will not be teachers
Pearson doesn't much like the teaching profession as it currently
stands. They believe that teaching must be transformed from a "largely
under-qualified and trained, heavily unionized, bureaucratically
controlled semi-profession into a true profession with a distinctive
knowledge base, framework for teaching, well-defined common terms for
describing and analyzing teaching at a level of specificity and strict
control."
"Learning systems of the future will free up teacher time currently
spent on preparation, marking and record-keeping and allow a greater
focus on the professional roles of diagnosis, personalized instruction,
scaffolding deep learning, motivation, guidance and care." The system
will do all the planning and implementing, and the system will put all
the necessary technology at hand. "But without such a systematic,
data-driven approach to instruction, teaching remains an imprecise and
somewhat idiosyncratic process that is too dependent on the personal
intuition and competence of individual teachers."
All educational decisions will be made by the software and the system.
Teachers will just be needed as a sort of stewardess. We will
teacher-proof the classroom, so that any nasty individuality cannot mess
up the system.
Personalized learning won't be
Pearson's concept of personalized learning is really about personalized
pacing. The framework for learning starts with "validated maps of the
sequence in which students typically learn a given curriculum outcome."
So-- like railroad tracks. Personalized does not mean wandering all over
a variety of possible learning paths. It means adjusting to move slower
or faster while pausing for review when there's a need to fill in
holes.
Pearson does not offer an answer to the age-old question, "How do all
students move at their own paces but still cross the finish line in
time?" They do suggest that we give up the old age-grade progression,
and they believe that high expectations fix everything, but they do not
directly explain if that's enough to keep some students from being stuck
in school until they're twenty-nine years old.
Character may be important, but humanity, not so much
One of the odd disconnects in Pearson's vision is that they value
(enough to plan measuring) social skills and character, but they do not
pause to consider how their system might affect or be affected by the
development of these qualities.
What does it do to the development of a child to be in groups that
change regularly because of differing educational pace. What will happen
when an eight year old must leave her best friend behind because she is
being moved up? What will happen to the very bright twelve-year-old
grouped with a bunch of fairly slow seventeen-year-olds?
Pearson lists a wide variety of possible obstacles to this system's
emergence, but they assume that students will simply fall in line and
take the system seriously, feeling some sort of accountability to the
device screen that delivers their instruction and assessment. Teachers
no longer automatically receive the trust and respect of our
students--we have to earn it. Pearson assumes that because they think
they're important, students will, too. That's a bad assumption.
Software will be magical
Pearson knows that trying to test any higher levels of cognition with
bubble test questions is doomed to failure. Their solution is magical
software. Software can ask questions that will delve deep, and software
can read and assess the answers to open-ended essay questions. Software
can suss out a student's intelligence so well that it can then create
more test items that will be perfect for that student. Software can
unerringly crunch all the data to create a perfect profile of the
student. Software can do all of these things better than live human
beings (even though software is written by live human beings).
And if you believe all that, I would like to sell you some software that controls the Brooklyn Bridge.
Important people are listening to these guys
You cannot read a page of this essay without encountering familiar
references. New tests that move beyond the old bubble tests. High
expectations can bring all students up to excellence. Enhanced data
collection will lead to better learning. The job of teaching needs to be
changed. We've heard it all from various bureaucrats, reformster
leaders, and US Secretaries of Education.
Important people pay attention to Pearson, even though most of their
ideas are rather dumb and self-serving. We all need to be paying
attention to Pearson as well, because back behind the Gatesian money and
the policies of Arne Duncan we find these guys, generating and
articulating the ideas that become foundational to the reformsters.
It would be easy to dismiss Pearson as simple money-grubbing
corporatists, to lump them together with the goofy amateurism of a
Duncan or a Coleman. But they are rich, they are polished, they are
powerful, and they are, I believe, driven. I have never read work by
Michael Barber in which he does not note that changing the global face
of education is a moral imperative, a job that he must do because he
knows what must be done to improve mankind. For me, that takes this all
to a new level of scary. | http://bit.ly/1AIIAJ8
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T
FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other
Sources
PUNISHED TEACHER IN CLASS AGAIN: 8-month exile over
fundraising spotlights union/district differences re: discipline | http://bit.ly/1DYsoZO
From the wonderful folks who drew the FBI to LAUSD: PREPARING FOR A RENAISSANCE IN ASSESSMENT | http://bit.ly/1GHOfma
WHISTLEBLOWER CASE COSTS LAUSD A $3.3 MILLION JURY AWARD + smf’s [less than] 2¢ | http://bit.ly/16Duak9
ANOTHER LAUSD MiSiS COMPUTER GLITCH DELAYS TEACHERS FROM ENTERING GRADES + Weekly MiSiS third-party update | http://bit.ly/1AqRz3e
TEACHING ENGLISH LEARNERS THE LANGUAGE OF MATH + smf’s 2¢ | http://bit.ly/13O6ZCO
TO GIVE THEIR CHILDREN A BETTER EDUCATION, PARENTS LAUNCH A NEW SCHOOL | http://bit.ly/1GFre3o
CORTINES DOUBLES NUMBER OF DIRECT REPORTS IN LAUSD OVERHAUL | http://bit.ly/1DSJPee
COSTS FOR SPECIAL ED SERVICES CLIMB AS PARENTS FEEL THE PINCH | http://bit.ly/1JwsdVV
2 STORIES: UTLA LOWERS SALARY DEMAND, says pay proposal lowered in hopes of reaching a deal in the next few months | http://bit.ly/1wvqjj1
TURKEY ISSUES ARREST WARRANT FOR U.S. BASED ISLAMIC CLERIC ...WHO HAPPENS TO BE U.S. LARGEST CHARTER SCHOOL PROMOTER http://bit.ly/13KP7bV
WASHINGTON STATE’S FIRST CHARTER SCHOOL PLACED ON PROBATION …for failing to live up to its charter | http://bit.ly/1z3CAYN
NO RELIEF FOR LAUSD?: "'There must be some way out of here' said the joker to the thief” | http://bit.ly/1v3LWCJ
CORTINES SEEKS AN ADDITIONAL YEARS’ RELIEF FROM SMARTER BALANCED/COMMON CORE TESTING. 2 Stories + smf’s 2¢ | http://bit.ly/1BUtn8C
Lawbreaker? …or Whistleblower?: EX-LAUSD CHIEF RISK OFFICER’S MIRAMONTE LAWSUIT LACKS DETAIL, SAYS JUDGE | http://bit.ly/1A7zcjD
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
*Dates and times subject to change. ________________________________________
• SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE:
http://www.laschools.org/bond/
Phone: 213-241-5183
____________________________________________________
• LAUSD FACILITIES COMMUNITY OUTREACH CALENDAR:
http://www.laschools.org/happenings/
Phone: 213-241.8700
What can YOU do?
• E-mail, call or write your school board member:
Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Bennett.Kayser@lausd.net • 213-241-5555
George.McKenna@lausd.net • 213-241-6382
Monica.Ratliff@lausd.net • 213-241-6388
Richard.Vladovic@lausd.net • 213-241-6385
Steve.Zimmer@lausd.net • 213-241-6387
...or your city councilperson, mayor, the governor, member of congress,
senator - or the president. Tell them what you really think! • Find
your state legislator based on your home address. Just go to: http://bit.ly/dqFdq2 • There are 26 mayors and five county supervisors representing jurisdictions within LAUSD, the mayor of LA can be reached at mayor@lacity.org • 213.978.0600
• Call or e-mail Governor Brown: 213-897-0322 e-mail: http://www.govmail.ca.gov/
• Open the dialogue. Write a letter to the editor. Circulate these
thoughts. Talk to the principal and teachers at your local school.
• Speak with your friends, neighbors and coworkers. Stay on top of education issues. Don't take my word for it!
• Get involved at your neighborhood school. Join your PTA. Serve on a School Site Council. Be there for a child.
• If you are eligible to become a citizen, BECOME ONE.
• If you a a citizen, REGISTER TO VOTE.
• If you are registered, VOTE LIKE THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT. THEY DO!.
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