Is Brian Williams "Reformy"?

So, I'm looking at the list of honorees at the "Worst Party Ever,"and one names stands out: Brian Williams. Yes, that Brian Williams, America's Most Trusted Newsman ©.

The "Worst Party Ever" is being hosted by the Center For Education Reform. CER is pro-charter, anti-grass roots, anti-union, and anti-local control. They regularly critique the media, looking for pro-reformy reporting and criticizing anything that may possibly give voice to a push back of their agenda.

In other words: this is not a neutral education research group, nor an uncontroversial service organization. These people have a political agenda, and they push it hard.

Am I the only one who thinks it is more than a little unseemly that one of the best known newsmen in America is accepting an award from these people? Isn't this a clear violation of journalistic ethics?

Would everyone be OK with Mr. Williams accepting an award from the NEA? How about the Chamber of Commerce? The Heritage Foundation? People For the American Way?

Why hasn't anyone called Williams on this? Shouldn't we start?

ADDING: From the "Worst Party Ever" website:

Brian Williams – Special Media Award
As the nation’s most well-respected and influential journalist, Brian Williams has thrust the need for education reform into the homes and minds of millions of Americans. 

The work of NBC, particularly Williams’ contributions to Education Nation, have made a critical difference in a big, new way building an influential advocacy base for charter schools and reforms that professionalize teaching and put students and performance first. Williams’ wit, intelligence and telegenic personality have not only kept reform a hot issue at NBC, but shows there’s much more to reporting than just being on the beat. 

Williams’ passion for creating better educational opportunities does not fade even when the television camera lights do. His personal involvement with schools like Harlem Village Academies and other reform efforts are commendable. 

For rockin’ reform on and off the air, the EdReformie goes to…Brian Williams. [emphasis mine]

Is this the job of a journalist? Have we given up any pretext of objectivity?

I mean... wow. I'm speechless.

Some Actual Jazz Blogging

How did I ever miss this piece of film?



A true genius. I've been playing and writing for years, and it never occurred to me that "seeing" the notes on the piano made such a difference. Maybe because it's the only instrument I play (I mean play well - although I have been in need of some serious shedding since I started the teaching gig...).

I think I've seen the performances after, but never the interview. Just great.

A VERY Rare Disagreement

Look, you guys know I love Matt DiCarlo. I mean, I LOVE the guy. He and Bruce Baker are the two safe ports in a storm of reformy pseudo-research; I'd be lost without both. And I'm really flattered Matt added me to his blogroll, which I only noticed today.

So it pains me to take great exception to this post:

I’m always uncomfortable with personal accusations in our education debate, and they come from both “sides.” For instance, I don’t like hearing accusations that market-based reformers are “profiteers.” The implication is that these people seek to dismantle or otherwise alter the public education system for their own economic advantage. 

It’s true that a significant proportion of market-based reformers support various forms of privatization, such as vouchers, and that this support is in part based on the power of competition and the profit motive to increase efficiency. It’s also true that there are some who stand to profit personally off certain policy changes. But the overwhelming majority of people on the “reform side” have no financial skin in the game, and even those who do might actually still care about education and children. You can and should disagree with them, if you’re so inclined, but accusing them of being motivated solely by personal financial gain, or even implying as much, could well be unfair, but, more importantly, it contributes nothing of substance to the debate. 

On the flip side of that coin, however, is the endlessly-repeated “we care about children, not adults” narrative. This little nugget is a common message from the market-based reform crowd. Most recently, Ben Austin, head of a pro-charter school group, was on a panel at NBC’s Education Nation, and repeated the talking point several times. In fact, there’s now a small confederation of advocacy groups nominally based on the “children over adults” accusation – Students First, Stand for Children, etc. [emphasis mine]

Now, you all know I'm down with paragraph #3. And I can understand Matt's squeamishness with calling people out for their motivations. But at this point in the debate, if we're going to be honest, I really see no other choice. Granted, not all of the corporate reformers are directly profiting from "reform" - but that doesn't mean they don't have a personal economic interest in the outcome.

As David Sirota points out in this seminal piece from Salon, there are three ways the Billionaire Boys Club profits from "reform." Yes, there's the promise of a direct infusion of taxpayer cash from a $650 billion sector; folks like Joel Klein and the titans of the testing industry are smacking their chops at the thought.

But in some ways, the more important and lucrative benefits of "reform" are found in the busting of unions and the diversion of the country's attention away from the true causes of poverty and income inequity.

The union busting is becoming particularly brazen. Jonah Edelman, self-satisfied jerk that he is, couldn't help but brag that this was the entire point of his little adventure in Illinois: plutocrats funding backroom deals to get teachers to work more for less money. His coup plays perfectly into the world-view of folks like Steve Brill, who lay most of the nation's education problems at the feet of the unions.

But why does Brill suggest working with them in the end of his tome? Why let the Randi Weingartens run things if their unions are directly responsible for so much misery? Only one reason: he and his wealthy fellow travelers need a villain. Heaven forbid all of their dreams come true and they have to put up or shut up; if that ever happens and the inevitable failure of "reform" follows, people might start looking their way for the real causes of the mess we are in.

This is, to my mind, the most valuable benefit of "reform" for our Galtian overlords: it masks the conversation this country should have started years ago about how we continue to allow chronic poverty to fester in the greatest economic power on Earth. It blames "paid-for-breathing teachers" and "failing schools" for poverty while completely ignoring the massive inequity our political system has guaranteed for decades. It blames our deficits on public workers for having the audacity to demand decent health care and modest pensions while ignoring the historically low tax rates the wealthiest among us pay.

The fact is that this is all a huge distraction. How do I know? Simple: we all know the "reform" these people are proposing will not work. All you have to do is read Matt's blog every day (and Bruce's) for all the evidence you will ever need.


Which brings us back to topic of motivation. The people who are funding the corporate "reform" movement are not stupid. They are all quite capable of ascertaining the facts in evidence regarding education reform. They should all be able to see though the facile arguments of the charter cheerleaders and believers in the Merit Pay Fairy. This ain't rocket science - I'm a music teacher, for Pete's sake, and even I get.

Why don't they get it? Why do they insist on pushing an agenda that Matt and I and everyone else with a lick of sense and a modest understanding of math know is contradicted by the evidence?

I think Upton Sinclair put it best:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

Matt, I do think you are one of our most valuable players. But on this point, you are just dead wrong. These people may genuinely care about kids, but they care about preserving the real status quo much, much more.

Let me put it this way:

Do the hedge fund managers and multi-billionaires behind the corporate "reform" movement want to see kids lifted out of poverty and succeed in school?

Of course they do.

Are they willing to seriously consider instituting pre-Reagan tax levels, establishing a rigorous regulation system, and removing all traces of corporate money from our political system to finally tackle endemic poverty and make that dream a reality?

You tell me.

More Education Journalism Failure

Look, I really don't want to be the Star-Ledger bashing guy. They've got Bob Braun, they got some good reporters, they get many things right. But how can I not call out Tom Moran for stuff like this?

The Christie administration last week rejected 56 of the 60 applications for new charter schools, a welcome sign that its standards are tough despite its ideological support for the choice movement.

The best of these schools, like the TEAM Academy in Newark, are miracles in our midst. With the same demographic mix of students as district schools, their kids are doing much better in basic skills. And they are doing it for less money, in a setting that is safe and orderly. Expanding on that success should be a top priority.

I was all set to hit the Common Core again to show that TEAM is a good school, but hardly a miracle, when - SURPRISE! - you-know-who does the number crunching:

Nearly every phrase in this statement is misleading or simply wrong. And that’s a shame. My apologies for being trapped in meetings yesterday and not having a chance to return calls on this topic. I might have been able to head this off.  Perhaps most disturbingly, this stuff really doesn’t help out TEAM Academy much either. Readers of my blog know that I often go after stories about the high flying Newark and Jersey City charters which, for the most part, stick out like sore thumbs when it comes to demographics and attrition. Readers also realize that it is not that I think these schools are doing a bad job. Rather, I think many are doing a great service. But, I am concerned that the media often deceives the public into believing that the “successes” of schools like North Star and Robert Treat can be scaled up to improve the entire system, which they cannot, because they simply do not serve students like those in the rest of the system. [emphasis mine]

Read the entire thing: basically, TEAM does not serve as many kids in poverty as the neighborhood schools, and that at least partially accounts for their success. That and the fact that they pay their teachers really well.

Bruce concentrates on this point in his post; let me get to another glaring problem in the S-L editorial:

That growth has created a political backlash, especially in some successful suburban districts where parents argue that charters drain money from traditional schools. A bill in the Legislature would allow towns to block charter schools by referendum.

Our view is it would be a mistake that could endanger the movement. School elections have notoriously small turnouts, and that gives unions outsized influence. And why should charter schools be subject to a vote when other schools, such as magnet schools, are not? Isn’t it enough that parents want to send their children to charters?

No, it's not. There are plenty of parents who want to do all sorts of things for their kids, but we don't necessarily fund them - not unless there is oversight. Which is the crux of the problem.

When a charter comes into your town, your taxes pay for it; however, the board of education that you elected to oversee how funds for schools are spent has no say in how the charter uses your money. You are being taxed without any representation to serve your interests.

The magnet question is hardly settled, especially in these tight times. Still, magnets ultimately report to a board of education, so there is oversight and accountability. Magnets are also defined as vocational-technical schools, meaning they (ostensibly) have a specialized curriculum that fulfills a specialized need as defined by state statute. Charters have no such restrictions.

Further, high-performing magnets are really geared toward gifted and talented education: unique schools for unique students. That has definitely not how charters have been sold.

Again: if a district wants a charter, great. But no one should force these things down a community's throat. The S-L continues:

Charter schools are public schools, funded with public money. It is true that money is diverted from traditional districts to finance them. But that’s because the money is rightly attached to the child, not to the adults running the conventional systems. If those districts don’t want charter schools in their towns, the answer is to improve their own programs — not to cut off the means of escape.

Is the S-L really saying that Millburn - one of the highest performing districts in the state, let alone the country - is in need of improvement? Come on.

Further, as we have been through over and over again here, it does not cost the same amount to educate every child. Charters skim off the average ones, who are relatively cheap to educate, and leave the expensive special needs kids for the public school.

Charters are no panacea. They serve only about 2 percent of the state’s public school population. But that number is growing steadily. And if each step is taken carefully, it will continue to grow.

Rather than fight that, traditional schools should peek inside these walls and see what they can learn.

There is no indication charters will continue to grow AND thrive, because they aren't doing any better than public schools. So why should anyone "peek inside" unless the school is beating the odds?

Top-Secret Reformers!

The corporate education "reform" movement here in Jersey is hiding more secrets than a James Bond villain. For example: who is approving all these new charters?

The DOE has only a handful of staffers who oversee charter schools and it can’t carefully review every application it gets on its own. This year, a record 58 candidates sought to open charters.

So to help with the painstaking selection effort, the state enlisted more than a dozen unpaid volunteers, experts on charters and education who reviewed the applications and gave recommendations. Ultimately, the DOE made the final decision and approved 23 of those schools.

Now, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and state Sen. Nia Gill (D-Essex) aredemanding the DOE identify the volunteers, to make sure there are no conflicts of interest.

That’s a good idea — not because there’s evidence of anything objectionable, but because the public has a right to know. It will protect the integrity of the very necessary job these screeners are doing. And it’s just one more way of ensuring that the very best charter schools are chosen.

The DOE doesn’t want to release the names, saying volunteers have a "reasonable expectation of privacy." But that’s not justification enough. The screeners are performing a public job, and any charters chosen for the wrong reasons would hurt the growth of good ones.

Note to the Star-Ledger: how can you say these people are "experts" when you don't even know who they are? The NJDOE has a track record of stocking panels with people whose expertise is quite questionable. The current teacher evaluation task force has the poster boy for tenure, Rafael Fajardo, and Derrell "Promote the Reformer" Bradford. Why would anyone believe the charter panel is full of experts when the teacher evaluation panel has so few?

Further: Acting Commissioner Cerf has a questionable past when it comes to conflict of interest. Deputy Commissioner Smarick also has some interesting ties outside of the DOE. How do we know there isn't more of the same involved here? One might be led to believe the DOE might be embarrassed if these reviewers are exposed...

All of this comes on the heels of yet another new group that's taking out ads to proclaim how wonderful Chris Christie's fuzzy-on-the-details "reform" agenda is:

Gov. Chris Christie said today he will not tell a group that is advertising and promoting his reform policies in some states to disclose their funding.

“It’s up to them,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday. “It’s their group…I have nothing to do with the group. If they are out there helping me, I say thank you very much.”

The group, Committee for Our Children's Future (CCF), a 501(c)(4) organization, said on Tuesday it launched a $1.5 million cable TV ad campaign in New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia to promote the reform measures Christie has been pushing.

Over at Blue Jersey, the promised land has exposed some interesting connections between the group and Christie. It's all in the shadows, though - very hush-hush.

I wonder: if the corporate "reform" plan is so freakin' great, why are so many people afraid to be associated with it?

We work in the shadows....

(Gosh, I hope that picture didn't offend Matt Yglesias...)

A Look Into the Future

TRENTON, NJ -- December 10, 2016

In a stunning blow to the crumbling education "reform" movement, the New Jersey Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that abolished the state's system of using standardized test scores to evaluate teachers.

The court ordered the 546 teachers dismissed in June of 2014 to be reinstated with full back pay in addition to compensatory damages. The teachers had been judged to be "ineffective" under the state's system, and had lost tenure rights before they were dismissed.

The unanimous decision states: "Rarely has this court seen a plan - governmental or otherwise - that so completely ignored accepted scientific research. It is astonishing that the Department of Education implemented a program of teacher evaluations based on standardized test scores when all the evidence showed that competent teachers would inevitably be fired under this plan."

"We're obviously pleased, although it's a shame this lawsuit ever had to happen," said Atticus Finch, lawyer for the teachers who were dismissed. "All my clients ever wanted was to teach; all they've ever wanted during this entire episode is to return to the classroom. The children in their schools have missed out on years of good teaching for no good reason."

For the cash-strapped state, the lawsuit not only means millions in liability; potentially, New Jersey could be on the hook for much more. Teachers who were denied merit pay on the basis of the same system have their own lawsuit pending; given today's ruling, the state may face even more costly sanctions.

"It's a disaster," said Governor Barbara Buono. "I tried to stop this in the Legislature when I was a Senator, but now it's too late. We'll be paying for this for years to come."

"If only [former governor] Chris Christie had bothered to give the pilot program for teacher evaluation more time, none of this would have happened. How could we have a real pilot when we didn't even have time to evaluate the results?"

In 2011, when the pilot was launched, only a snarky teacher-blogger had bothered to point out that the pilot was so rushed that NJASK scores and tests wouldn't be available in time for a thorough analysis.

Both lawsuits center around the use of standardized test results as a basis for evaluating teachers. In a series of expert testimonies, researchers documented study after study that showed high rates of error when using tests to judge educators.

Most observers, however, agree that the plaintiffs really made their case when the court allowed testimony from the scorers of the NJASK, the standardized tests used in New Jersey for 3rd through 8th grades.

"It was brutal," said Finch. "The testimony was like it was from Todd Farley's book, Making the Grades: scorers who couldn't speak English, supervisors gaming the system, sloppy rubrics, bad working conditions, changing criteria... a complete mess."

"We probably would have won just on the research alone, which shows 1 out of every 4 teachers will be misidentified using test scores. But when we pulled back the veil on the standardized testing industry, we knew we were going to crush the state's case."

"I don't think the testing companies ever imagined that this lawsuit would allow for a careful evaluation of their practices. Now, they're going to have to justify themselves all over the country. It won't be pretty."

Vice-President Chris Christie was not available for comment. Neither was former Acting Commissioner of Education Chris Cerf, who is currently in London working for Rupert Murdoch's company, Wireless Generation, with his former boss at the New York City schools, Joel Klein...

Can Geoffrey Canada Read?

I ask whenever I hear him say things like this:

The evidence keeps mounting that America is no longer a leader when it comes to educating its children. The perilous situation is exposed with each new report on the data. The National Assessment of Educational Progress shows little improvement over the decades.

Yeah, uh... no.

A rule of thumb for the NAEP is that 10 points equals a year of learning. If so, we've had an explosion in mathematics learning over the last to decades. Reading's less impressive but still heading upward.

Can Geoffrey Canada read these graphs?

We DON"T Need a Longer School Day

It seems as if the past few days were "National Longer School Day Week." The NY Times had a big conversation on the issue; Slate responded. Of course, the corporate "reformers" have been weighing in for some time:

• Jonah Edelman from Stand For Children essentially "fixed" a state-wide election to get a longer school day.
• Geoffrey Canada at Harlem Children's Zone keeps pushing for a longer school day.
• Ricard Barth at Kipp wants a longer school day as well.

You know what? We don't need a longer school day:



I teach in the 'burbs, and for my students, school is just the first part of the day. At relatively affluent high schools, well over half of the kids participate in some sort of after-school sports. Many more are in the marching band or cheerleading or student government or the glee club or the school plays...

These are all huge time commitments but legitimate learning experiences. Add to that the value of working a part-time job, AND the enormous amount of homework many of these kids have... really, the last thing they need is another 90 minutes in class every day.

As you drop down to the younger ones, you find the same pattern, only with private providers: music lessons, travel sports (Bob Bigelow has been all over this for a long time), dance, martial arts, foreign language, all kinds of camps, Kumon, tutoring...

Now, there is a legitimate point to be made here: the kids in the 'burbs are getting all of this stuff while poor kids go lacking. I don't think we need to emulate the 'burbs everywhere - the 'burbs actually need to pull back - but I do absolutely agree that we need more high-quality after-school programs in needy areas.

If the corporate reformers are all for that, they should get behind organizations like the Boys and Girls Clubs, which can provide all kinds of healthy social, athletic, artistic, and academic experiences. This is a "longer day" we can all support, as it will help mold brighter, happier, well-rounded citizens.

But more time preparing for bubble tests? No way.

All the Education Opinion That's Fit To Fail

The NY Times attempts education opining. Yeesh:

To qualify for waivers, states will have to install new tests — and teacher evaluation systems that take those test results into account — by the 2014-15 school year. The 12 states that received federal grants in the Race to the Top program last year have a head start. They agreed to put in data-driven teacher evaluation systems as part of that competition. But even reform-minded states like Delaware, which was one of the first to win a grant, have been unable to get their systems up and running and have asked the government for more time. [emphasis mine]

Yes, let's hold up "reform-minded" Delaware as a model:

If that's the model for "reform," you can keep it. The Times continues:

Part of the problem is that in most states, yearly math and reading tests are given only in grades three through eight and once in high school and cover less than half of the teachers. This means that the system must devise other rigorous rating measures for the remaining staff. Another is that the systems must be designed not just to show how much children have improved, but also to provide guidance so that ineffective teachers get better. [emphasis mine]

Bubble tests for PE. How else do you want me to read this?

It seems imprudent to rush the states into bringing these complex new evaluations systems and high-quality tests on line by 2014, given that they will also be expected to adopt new core curriculums.

Yes, it's much better to roll out these "complex new systems" - like this one...

...nice and slowly. Because I'm sure your local school board will be able to figure out what this equation means by staring at it another year or two.

Once again, the mainstream press worships at the alter of the standardized test without taking any time to consider whether it's an appropriate measure of a teacher's effectiveness. The fact that all the experts say it isn't doesn't deter them. The fact that the tests themselves are sloppy and the way they are graded is a joke doesn't deter them. The fact that even if they did work, there is no evidence that gobs of great new teachers are ready to enter the field when we fire all of these allegedly bad teachers doesn't deter them. The fact that they can't show you any evidence that there are significant numbers of bad teachers in the first place doesn't deter them.

Instead of worrying about the timetable for rolling out test-based teacher evaluations, why don't we worry first about whether they actually work? Guess what? They don't.

America SUCKS!

So says the corporate-deucation "reform" movement - and they will distort, deceive, and outright lie to convince you it's true.

Don't believe me? Start with this completely mendacious "report card" that bemoans how awful American education is. Too bad for them that Bruce Baker is on the case:

So, while it may be fun to play with the tool and see how different local public school districts compare, more or less to one another as they relate to other countries, it is totally inappropriate to make bold claims that any of these findings speak to the supposed “mediocrity” of the best public schools in the U.S. Many may appear mediocre when transported internationally for no reason other than the penalty points assessed to them in the first to normative leaps (national and state mean), neither of which has much to do with their own performance.

Then we have another piece of think-tanky garbage from Third Way. Once again, Bruce to the rescue: over at his blog and at NEPC. My personal favorite quote from all of Bruce's writing on this:

Most importantly… and really no freakin’ surprise… in fact something I shouldn’t ever even have to graph in order to validate it – THE SUPPOSED “MIDDLE CLASS” SCHOOLS FALL WHERE? RIGHT IN LINE! RIGHT IN THE DAMN MIDDLE OF THE CATEGORIES ON EITHER SIDE OF THEM? HOW THE HECK IS THAT PERFORMING UNDER EXPECTATIONS? THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS LUDICROUS! IT’S RIGHT ON EXPECTATIONS – STATISTICALLY!

Oh, my naive professorial friend - you really didn't think your "facts" and "statistics" and "reason" were going to change these people's minds, did you?

(Of course he didn't...)

This nonsense works its way into the mainstream, where, of course, hapless "journalists" flail around attempting to understand things in which they've had no training or experience. Which is why folks like Geoffrey Canada are turned into heroes when they "bravely" point out how much America sucks. Or why when people like (the other) Ben Chavis (who acts quite literally like a maniac) bad mouths America education, he is rewarded with appearances on national television where he completely misrepresents the connection between poverty and academic achievement.

As has been pointed out by many others besides me, when we account for poverty, the US does very well in international comparisons. Same thing when we look at student background.

I'm left to wonder why so many corporate "reformers" want to trash-talk this country. I mean, it would be completely wrong for me to suggest that these people have anything but the noblest intentions...

Wouldn't it?