| The "Educational Reform" Scam ("Change" = More of the Same)
It's worth noting at TNR's Marty Peretz threw a typically lame hissy fit at Palast, " Left Paranoia about Barack Obama: Greg Palast Sounds the School Alarm", in which he first compared Palast to Seymour Hersh, whom he then claimed had basically never had a scoop since My Lai. In short, Marty's heart wasn't really in it, and he, like Obama, didn't seem to think anyone would care, either.
But if Peretz is just being his usual putz, it's nonetheless true that Palast is not a specialist in education reporting. So why not turn to someone who is, and totally outflank all the potential arguments that a more competent replacement for Marty Peretz might think of making? And if we're going to go for education writers, then why mess around? Why not turn to Gerald Bracey, arguably the nation's top education analyst/journalist/mythbuster since 1991?
In a January 4 article at Huffington Post, "The Hatchet Job On Linda Darling-Hammond", he provides concise, analytically razor-sharp analysis of how the only progressive (and, you know, actually qualified) candidate for Education Secretary was eliminated from competition. It was not done on the basis of competence, you'll be shocked! shocked! to discover.
Bracey lays out the basic parameters thus:
When Senator Clinton was still a candidate for president, both she and Senator Obama sought counsel from an educator friend of mine. He told them both not to say anything about education. No matter what you say, he told me that he told them, you're going to make a lot of people mad (he made his point in more colorful language). Oh, man, how right can you be?
In the run-up to Obama's picking a secretary, two sides formed in a debate over the desiderata for a secretary and might have duked it out, but only one side was permitted to throw punches in public. It wasn't Dems vs. the GOP. Indeed, that huge sucking sound you hear is Republicans trying to control their laughter. The two groups are largely within the Democratic Party. They might duke it out still because some see secretary of education-designate, Arne Duncan, as the right man in the right place and others see him as evil incarnate (though not quite so incarnate as Joel Klein or Michelle Rhee). If not evil incarnate, a man to further the corporatization of education and the commodification of childhood.
The winners in the fight-that-wasn't were the people who managed to get themselves anointed by the mainstream media--or "corporate media" as some call them--as reformers. They thereby once again illustrated George Lakoff's powerful concept of "frame." This gang consisted of Mike Bloomberg, Joel Klein, Paul Vallas, Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan and, weirdly enough, Al Sharpton. Really. It is useful to remember that "reform" means only to reshape, not necessarily improve.
The losers were actual educators in schools and universities who were mostly not permitted in the ring. The "reformers'" advocates managed to label their opposition candidate, Stanford's Linda Darling-Hammond, as an instrument of the "status quo" and as a teachers union tool. Ludicrous? Yes, but it happened.
Later on, Bracey observes:
Aside from a few letters to editors and blogs, about the only published support for Darling-Hammond came from John Affeldt in the Huffington Post, Alfie Kohn in The Nation, and the San Francisco Chronicle in an editorial. Fred Klonsky's blog called the one-sided and often loaded language used by the pro "reformers" bunch as "The hatchet job on Darling-Hammond." Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) emphatically agreed and headlined its take on the sad affair, "The media's failing grade on education 'debate.'"
FAIR's "Media Advisory," "Media's Failing Grade on Education 'Debate'", cited a variety of examples, both opinion pieces and news reporting, that showed the same slanted perspective, and observed:
Strangely, in corporate media's view, the selection of someone who would continue the education policies of the Bush administration would to signal that Obama favored serious change, even "radical reform" (in Brooks' words). The Tribune again:The Bush administration exploited this post not only to help promote crucial No Child Left Behind legislation, but to follow up by making schools more accountable for how well their students do--or don't--learn.
Will that emphasis on accountability now intensify? Or will it wither as opponents of dramatic change reclaim lost clout?... We trust that Obama instead will make a statement for real improvement.
So, more Bush policies = "change we can believe in." Good to know!
Because, of course, Bush's educational policies have been just as successful as his war on terror, his economic policies, his protection of New Orleans, you name it. I'll get to a quick look at Duncan's record in a moment. But first, here's the beginning of author Alfie Kohn's aforementioned article from the Nation, "We Can't Afford a School Privatizer in Obama's Cabinet", sketching out the parameters of the policy struggle:
If we taught babies to talk as most skills are taught in school, they would memorize lists of sounds in a predetermined order and practice them alone in a closet. -- Linda Darling-Hammond
Progressives are in short supply on the president-elect's list of cabinet nominees. When he turns his attention to the Education Department, what are the chances he'll choose someone who is educationally progressive?
In fact, just such a person is said to be in the running and, perhaps for that very reason, has been singled out for scorn in Washington Post and Chicago Tribune editorials, a New York Times column by David Brooks and a New Republic article, all published almost simultaneously this month. The thrust of the articles, using eerily similar language, is that we must reject the "forces of the status quo" which are "allied with the teachers' unions" and choose someone who represents "serious education reform."
To decode how that last word is being used here, recall its meaning in the context of welfare (under Clinton) or environmental laws (under Reagan and Bush). For Republicans education "reform" typically includes support for vouchers and other forms of privatization. But groups with names like Democrats for Education Reform -- along with many mainstream publications -- are disconcertingly allied with conservatives in just about every other respect. To be a school "reformer" is to support:
• heavy reliance on fill-in-the-bubble standardized tests to evaluate students and schools, generally in place of more authentic forms of assessment;
• the imposition of prescriptive, top-down teaching standards and curriculum mandates;
• disproportionate emphasis on rote learning -- memorizing facts and practicing skills -- particularly for poor kids;
• behaviorist model of motivation in which rewards (notably money) and punishments are used on teachers and students to compel compliance or raise test scores;
• corporate sensibility and an economic rationale for schooling, the point being to prepare children to "compete" as future employees; and
• charter schools, many run by for-profit companies.
Notice that these features are already pervasive, which means "reform" actually signals more of the same -- or, perhaps, intensification of the status quo with variations like one-size-fits-allnationalcurriculum standards or longer school days (or years). Almost never questioned, meanwhile, are the core elements of traditional schooling, such as lectures, worksheets, quizzes, grades, homework, punitive discipline and competition. That would require real reform, which of course is off the table.
Duncan's Spectacularly Un-Spectacular Chicago Record
So, that's the big picture. What about Duncan in particular? What about the Chicago schools he has "reformed?"
Here's an excerpt from an independent analysis of the Chicago public School's 2008 "progress Report" from Catalyst Chicago, which describes itself thus:
Catalyst Chicago is an independent newsmagazine created in 1990 to document, analyze and support school-improvement efforts in the Chicago Public Schools. It is published by the Community Renewal Society (CRS), a nonprofit organization founded in 1882 that works to create racially and economically just communities.
Here's what Catalyst Chicago says:
Decoding the district's progress report for 2008
Chicago Public Schools put on its best face in 2008: Another Year of Strong Progress for Chicago's Students - the district's self-assessment of last year's accomplishments and test score gains. But the rosy numbers mask a troubling reality, including decidedly mixed results on test scores at the showcase turnaround schools. On one measure - first-day attendance - the district is being disingenuous.
Here's our take on:
Attendance rates
This year's record-high first day attendance rate of 93.7 percent is a fishy number, based on a seven-month-old estimate of the number of students who were slated to enroll in September. In fact, Catalyst found several schools that, under the district's formula, posted first-day attendance rates that exceeded 100 percent.
At Robeson, for instance, early estimates predicted 1,197 students. When more than 1,400 showed up on the first day, the district's official attendance rate was 117 percent.
For charter schools that didn't report first-day attendance figures, CPS simply estimated that 100 percent of students showed up.
This is, needless to say, disturbingly similar to the phony attendence-keeping that was uncovered in Houston after Rod Paige had already been Bush's first Secretary of Education for some time. It's not nearly as pernicious in intent. Just sloopy as hell and not at all indicative of seriousness of purpose.
Next, a variety of test score results:
ISAT, PSAE & NAEP
The district likes to tout increases in test scores. After significant changes to the ISAT in 2006, the percentage of Chicago students who meet state standards has climbed from 61.6 percent to 65.2 percent (composite, counting English language learners). Statewide, scores rose from 77 percent to 79 percent.
In fact, Catalyst and other researchers have found evidence that the city's minority students are outpacing their suburban counterparts on successive elementary tests.
But Chicago still ranks low on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, otherwise known as the nation's report card. On the NAEP, Chicago's 8th-graders posted 10 point gains on the writing portion of the test, since 2002, putting Chicago up by a point over the average score for other large cities. Chicago's 8th-graders have also caught up to the urban average in reading.
But the good news ends there. Chicago 4th-graders trail other large urban cities in math by 10 points, reading by 7 points and science by 9 points. The city's 8th graders trail in math by 9 points and science by 8 points.
In high schools, the lone bright spot is Chicago's continued gains on the ACT, which have outpaced the state's gains in recent years. But the district's Class of 2008 still posted average scores (17.7) that are well shy of the statewide composite mark of 20.5. Meanwhile, the percentage of Chicago students who met state standards on the PSAE, which includes the ACT and a separate basic skills test, dropped from 30.1 percent in 2007 to 27.7 percent in 2008.
Experts say that students really need to exceed standards on the state's elementary tests in order to dramatically boost their chances of scoring a 20 on the ACT and gaining entrée into a quality college. But just 4.8 percent of 8th graders exceeded standards in reading last year, down from 7.2 percent.
Bottom line: these are very mixed results. The idea that the head of this system has some sort of sterling track record that makes him the guy to reform America's educational system is rather like taking a football coach from a college team with a winning record, but out of contention for his conference championship, and promoting him to replace the coach of last year's Superbowl champs. "Ridiculous" doesn't even begin to cover it.
Next, a look at his particular reform gimmick and how well (or not) it has done:
Turnarounds
CPS notes that test scores are up at Sherman and Harvard elementary schools, where an ambitious "turnaround" program (replace teachers, keep the students) has paved the way for similar efforts at four additional schools this year.
It's true, test scores are up at Sherman and Harvard-and at a faster clip compared to district-wide gains. Sherman's composite scores jumped from 34.9 percent to 40.2 percent; Harvard's scores climbed from 31.8 percent to 40.1 percent.
But data from the district's newest "value-added" measure raises serious questions. That measure compares how well individual students at each school perform on tests relative to students with similar backgrounds across the district.
A quick explanation: Schools where students make more progress compared to their peers elsewhere in the city get green lights. Red lights are stamped on schools where children are making less progress than average. A yellow light means it's unclear whether students' gains outpace or fall short of their peers.
Sherman got yellow lights in both reading and math. Harvard posted split results: a red in reading and a green in math.
Experts say it could take five years to determine the effectiveness of the turnaround approach, yet CPS plans to dramatically increase the number of turnarounds in 2009.
So, it will take 5 years to see if his gimmick works, but they're going to dramatically expand it, and promote him to experiment on all the nation's schools, without ever bothering to find out if his experiments succeed or not, before implmenting them who knows how widely?
As I've said before, this is change?
Not so much. Not so much at all. |
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