The Queen Of Gutting Tenure

We have a new queen of gutting tenure: Dr. Janine Walker Caffrey, the Superintendent of Perth Amboy. The queen was crowned by none other than Star-Ledger Opinion Editor Tom Moran, who has, within the space of two weeks, given her highness space for an op-ed decrying tenure AND the patented Moran-style hagiography (a treatment highly recommended by reformy hedge fund manager David Tepper).

I dealt with the substance of Moran's piece over at Blue Jersey. Let's talk about the style:

To earn such a huge amount of the S-L's space, Caffrey must have vast experience as an administrator in New Jersey's schools, right?

Wrong:

Janine Walker Caffrey's Experience

Superintendent of Schools

Perth Amboy Public Schools

2011 – Present (less than a year)

Author

Great Potential Press

2010 – Present (1 year)

Nurturing Brilliance: Discovering and Developing Your Child's Gifts

Author

DaCapo Lifelong Press

August 2008 – Present (3 years 5 months)

Drive: 9 Ways to Motivate Your Kids to Achieve

Assistant Superintendent

New York City Department of Education

Government Agency; 10,001+ employees; Education Management industry

2009 – 2011 (2 years)

patient

Dr. Mendes

2009 – 2010 (1 year)

Founder and Head of School

Renaissance Academy

2002 – 2009 (7 years)

Vice President, Infinity Schools

AMIkids

Nonprofit; 1001-5000 employees; Nonprofit Organization Management industry

1992 – 2002 (10 years)

Um, you mean she just started her first year as a New Jersey superintendent, and she's already been in two articles in the S-L as an expert on NJ's tenure laws? Does that strike anyone else as a little premature?

Well, let's go through the rest of the resume: maybe she's got some other experience that shows how she earned her tiara. AMIKids is a huge non-profit that helps troubled youth; good stuff as far as I can tell, but hardly related to teacher work protections.

"Founder and Head of School for the Renaissance Academy." Well, that's a private school in Florida; no tenure protections there. In fact, RA is a tiny school, with an enrollment of 94 children (according to their accreditation report). Click through to their narrative; by their own admission, the surrounding area is overwhelmingly white, and the school's population reflects that. Did the Perth Amboy BOE think Caffrey had adequate experience to run their district, with its 75% of students who speak Spanish at home?

How did Caffrey come to found this little private school?

What was a turning point in your life? My biggest failure was my biggest turning point. Renaissance Academy was originally designed to be a charter school. Three weeks before it was set to open, we lost the facility due to unexpected build-out costs. We had to lay off 13 employees and tell 230 students they needed to find another school. It was devastating, both personally and professionally. This caused me to remove every safety net I had in my life and really commit to what I knew was most important. [emphasis mine]

Caffrey was looking to start a charter (that ought to tell you something by itself), but she screwed up because she couldn't get the budget right. OK, everyone is entitled to mistakes; we learn from them. But, again: does this sound like someone who is ready to run a public school district with over 10,000 students?

I went to Guidestar (a non-profit information site) to look up the financials on Renaissance Academy, but I couldn't find anything. It took me a few minutes to realize why: Florida allows private schools to be run as for-profit institutions. Fortunately, Florida also has very good electronic records, and I was able to access the corporate report for 2011; it shows Caffrey as president of Renaissance Vision, Inc., a company with the same address as the Academy.

But wait: according to her LinkedIn resume above, Caffrey worked for the NYC DOE from 2009 to 2011. And the FL state report shows her address as Trinity, FL. But she was clearly working in NY at the time; here's a quality review report of a NYC high school she did in May of 2010.

Was Janine Caffrey the president of a corporation running a private school in Florida at the same time she was working for the NYC schools? Did NYC know this? Did the Perth Amboy BOE? And how did she find the time? Especially since she wrote two books during the period. And sold herself as a public speaker.

No wonder she can't be bothered with putting together a case for tenure hearings: she's way too busy with all these side projects! Unless, of course, she's suspended all of this outside activity. Has she? And does she still maintain an address in Florida?

Just asking...

There's very little record of Caffrey's time in New York. But her website says:

From 2009-2011, Janine enjoyed her work with the New York City Department of Education, where she developed new programs to help parents get involved in their children's education, and increase high school graduation rates.

OK, fine - but that really doesn't have much to do with tenure, does it?

Here's the takeaway: Janine Caffrey has scant little experience with the tenure laws of New Jersey, or any other state. There is no evidence she ever participated in a tenure case or supervised a teacher who had to be removed through tenure. Her books have nothing to do with the subject. Her supervisory experience in public schools is limited.

Which is why she can't, by her own admission, deal with poor teachers in her schools - she doesn't have the experience. She can't handle staff who are outright defiant or show up high to work:

Another teacher arrives at work high on drugs nearly every day. “The kids can spot it a mile away,” Caffrey says. “It’s been going on for at least five years, and there’s a file a mile thick with all the interventions. But it keeps happening.”

Any competent supervisor would have this person escorted out of the building by the police; but somehow, this solution eludes Caffrey. And the reason why is obvious when you look at her career: she's never had to deal with the situation before. Parents of Perth Amboy, are you happy with your superintendent?

Tom Moran picked a very weak subject for an op-ed about tenure. Yet he gave her multiple opportunities to crow that tenure is "...the single greatest impediment to education improvement in New Jersey, without a doubt." Maybe next time, Tom, you should ask someone who's actually spent significant time in New Jersey's education system the question. Maybe you should ask a superintendent who is competent at his or her job.

And maybe, Tom, you ought not to automatically gravitate toward someone simply because they know how to market themselves to the press:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Lord, she sounds like Michelle Rhee talking about how her children suck at soccer. But now that I think about it, the parallels with Rhee are obvious: a superintendent, lacking in practical public school administrative experience but with a penchant for self-promotion, thrown into a large district. I wonder how her staff feels about her - is it the same as Rhee's teachers felt about her?

Well, we all saw how great that worked out in Washington DC. Let's see how Tom Moran's new queen of tenure fares in Perth Amboy - a district that has a lot of... issues - over the next few years.

Christie Criticizes Pro-Voucher Rally (Unless He's a Hypocrite)

This past week, pro-voucher forces in New Jersey bussed kids in from local Catholic schools to rally in support of a school voucher bill. 

Chris Christie condemned that rally; he thinks it is wrong to take kids out of school for a protest:

"The schools did a lousy job in really permitting all these students to walk out in the middle of the school day. Their parents send them there not to protest. They send them there to learn. And I have no problem with students protesting. They have absolutely every right to exercise their first amendment rights. But they should exercise their first amendment rights either before school or right after school."

Good for the governor! Children should never be used as political pawns...

Oops! Oh, is my face red! See, this is a quote from last year. He wasn't complaining about a pro-voucher rally where kids - many of whom did not know why they were there - were bussed in by adults. No, he was complaining about spontaneous high school student walk-outs in protest of his cutting nearly $1 billion from public education.

Gosh, sorry to get that wrong. But I'm sure the Governor will be as equally dismissive of this rally as he was of the student walk-outs last year. He'll be out with a condemnation of this right away.

Yep, any minute now...

ADDING: Over at Blue Jersey, I pointed out the reporters couldn't even agree on the number of people at this Astroturfed rally. In the comments, huntsu makes the excellent point that the kids at the rally don't need vouchers; they're already attending these schools. What, exactly, was the point of shipping them to Trenton, if only for show?

And if you don't believe this was professionally staged, scroll down to the comments on this piece at NJ Spotlight.

Rochester Leads the Way

Oh dear; Eli Broad isn't going to like this:



Can everyone understand now why the corporate reformers are pumping large wads of cash into school board elections? Why Jonah Edelman, money funnel to the obscenely wealthy, got himself involved in the Denver School Board race, which set records for campaign spending? Why the dictatorial Michael Bloomberg - who apparently now thinks of himself as a sort of stoned generalissimo - appoints corporatists to lead "his" schools? Why Newark continues to suffer under dictatorial control of its education system?

It has nothing to do with party politics. This is all about control: control of the schools, control of the contracts, control of the teachers, control of the students, control of the parents, control of the community. These people find the messiness of democracy to be distasteful. Life is much simpler for them if they hold the reigns tightly and continue to be held to account only by themselves.

These folks in Rochester get it. People around the country are starting to get it. The very notion of the Broad Superintendents Academy - a private training ground to push one man's vision of education "reform" - is offensive to democracy. Schools districts are civic institutions and should be transparent to the communities that they serve.

I know this talk makes some people nervous. It should; as Nehru said: "The man who has gotten everything he wants is all in favor of peace and order." Bravo to the folks in Rochester who brought a little chaos and disorder to a system that could use it.

Hubris Of the Incompetent

Let's leave aside Jersey for a sec and mix things up a bit.

Down in Tennessee, the ruling elite have been waging a war on teachers, funded in large part by disgraced junk bond king Michael Milken. As regular visiter to this site "jcg" has pointed out in comments, the evaluation tool Tennessee uses assumes a standard distribution of scores; if the actual scores don't fit, they game the system to make it fit. Would you like your job performance evaluated this way?

As Michael Winerip has reported in the NY Times, teachers in Tennessee who teach subjects where students don't take standardized tests now have to play a game where they pick and choose the test results in other subjects that become a mandatory part of their evaluation; in other words, the art teacher has to decide whether she wants her evaluation to include the school's results in reading, writing, or math as part of her rating. No, I'm not kidding.

So, what do the overlords of Tennessee's business community think about this massive exercise in stupidity?

The business community strongly supports these education reform initiatives. The reason is simple. When we look for new employees, we want to find them in Tennessee. Too often, Tennessee students have lacked the basic knowledge and skill sets employers needed, forcing businesses to look outside Tennessee to find qualified employees. The reforms enacted in Tennessee make it far more likely that Tennessee businesses can find the right employees here at home.

Tennessee is off to the right start, and it would be a mistake to roll back any of these reforms. That is why business leaders are concerned when we hear calls to change course, particularly calls to abandon the teacher evaluations that are vital to ensure that our students are prepared for the work force.

In other words: the owners of Tennessee want workers who are good at filling in bubbles on a sheet, and who passively accept arbitrary and idiotic evaluation schemes. So taking emphasis off of subjects that develop critical thinking - civics, the arts, physical education, the sciences, practical arts - is a GOOD thing, because it makes people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough not to question the royal screwing workers have been getting from their owners over the last 30 years.

Of course, Tennessee's rulers have been trying to shove the schools there into a corporate reform model for years. Bruce Baker bemoaned that the state won the first round of Race To The Top seemingly on the basis of its stunning mediocrity:



But the educational genius who wrote this pablum, Gregg Morton, crows about winning RTTT, as if it were proof of the state's successes. And I'm not surprised Morton is for faulty reporting systems; he's the president of AT&T-Tennessee, a company that allegedly plays fast and loose with the rules:

The nation’s largest phone company is facing allegations that it has shortchanged 911 districts across Tennessee.

For more than $1 million, AT&T has settled with the Emergency Communications District of Davidson County, which alleged in a federal lawsuit that AT&T was not charging enough of the fees that are used to support Nashville’s 911 system in an effort to bundle services to businesses at competitive prices.

Only two weeks after that case was closed, the Hamilton County (Chattanooga) Emergency Communications District filed its own federal lawsuit alleging similar activity. Officials with the Shelby County (Memphis) Emergency Communications District confirmed they also are talking with AT&T about the issue.

Nice. Obviously the kind of ethical role model we want for both our kids and our teachers.

I've said it before: these corporate types need to get their own houses in order before they go sticking their fingers into educational pies. It's not like Tennessee's business leaders have done much for the people of their state:

When Tennessee's esteemed business leaders figure out how to get people back to work, they can start criticizing teacher evaluation systems. Until then, they ought to show a little humility and clean up their own mess.

Charter Churn

Darcie twitter-pointed to this interview with Chris Christie, where he made a truly amazing statement (about 31:30):

Watch live streaming video from townsquaremedianj at livestream.com

Caller: Governor, I'm from Cherry Hill, NJ, and we have high performing school districts. My question for you is, why would your administration have a charter school accepted in Cherry Hill? We have some of the best schools in the state, and now we have this charter school, which should not have been approved in the first place. You've got an organization that's running a ministry for ex-offenders, which is zoned to be on the same site as the charter school. And additionally, we had a gentleman who was living on the site, who robbed several houses in our neighborhood. Also, there's one letter of recommendation that was in the application which appears to be falsified. Why on earth would something like this be approved? 

Governor Christie: Well, Rita, first of all, the charter school law provides for charter schools to be available all across the state.  I will tell you that it's my preference - and I've made this really clear publicly a number of times - that charter schools be put in failing school districts, not in successful ones, in order to try and create greater innovation, greater achievement, and greater options for children who have failed school districts. So you and I don't disagree on that. 

I can't speak to the specific facts that you talked about, in the charter school application that you reference, 'cause - I'm sure you're not surprised to know that I don't review the charter school applications personally, and that these are decisions made by the [ACTING!  - JJ] Commissioner of Education. I will certainly ask Commissioner Cerf about the circumstances that you raised in Cherry Hill; we have your contact information. And we'll get back to you as to the answers on that.  

But, what I will tell you in general is, I've continued to emphasize to the educational community, that I think charter schools should predominately, if not exclusively, be in failing schools districts, where you can provide people with innovative options to failing neighborhood schools. [emphasis mine]

What's the fallout from this statement? Well - and I can't say whether this is causation or just correlation - one week later:

New Jersey's charter school director, on the job for less than a dozen months, will be stepping down at the end of this year to take a new job in Chicago public schools.

Carly Bolger, director of the state Department of Education's charter school office, said her decision was "100 percent personal," since she is moving because of a relationship in Chicago. Finding the right job as director of Chicago's New Schools Office helped determine the timing, she said.

"My time here has been an incredible experience," she said yesterday. "I have worked with great people and created a great team, and I think really charted the course for where New Jersey is heading with charter schools."

You sure did - and that course is away from them.

Chris Christie is many things, but he is not a fool. The backlash against charters and vouchers in the 'burbs is truly a grassroots movement, spurred by taxpayers and parents who know better than to trade their great public schools for snake oil. These people are his base: he is nothing without them. And he knows the 'burbs were none too happy with his cuts in state aid. It speaks volumes that only 20 districts in the state turned their extra state aid from this past summer into tax gifts: the 'burbs do not want Trenton to screw around with the schools that keep their property values high and their quality of life great.

So these guys have made the decision that it's just not worth the fight: especially when the news has gone out that Waiting For Superman was just a movie and charters aren't the miracle cures their cheerleaders claim them to be. And if they're not going to fight, maybe some of the staff needed to move on - maybe.

One other little tidbit from the article:

Bolger said she would remain through the end of the calendar year, and also assist in the sometimes controversial review of charter applications. The department over the past year has been criticized for using outside reviewers, whom it has refused to identify but turned out to be largely charter school leaders and advocates.

Charter advocates were not fans of the latest process, either, calling it a vague and poorly designed system that led to just four of more than 50 applications being approved in the latest round. A report by the Washington-based Center for Education Reform yesterday slammed the application process for what it called its lack of transparency and objectivity.

Outside reviewers from around the country will be part of the current application process as well, Bolger said, but the names will be released after the process is finished. The reviewers also will not be paid this time, officials said.

I addressed this double-secret charter review panel earlier; Darcie in the comments claimed it was Bolger who was quite insistent on keeping the names of the reviewers secret. It took the Education Law Center and the ACLU a year to get the names released, so it's not like the DOE was thrilled with the idea of transparency. And why do the names have to be released after the review; wouldn't it be better to release the names before for public scrutiny?

In any case, now that Bolger's leaving, I guess if we'll see whether Lord High Executioner Cerf will be as stubborn as he has been in keeping a tight grip on the flow of information about charter school reviews. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing who is on his little list.


(catch the dig at Murdoch?)

America's Worst Mayor

Oh, dear:

Some New Yorkers may have wondered what Mayor Michael Bloomberg was smoking when he proclaimed he has his "own army” and admitted he "smoked up" in college during an unscripted speech at MIT Tuesday.

During that speech, Bloomberg let down his guard on a wide range of topics – including his own drug and alcohol use in the 1960s.

“I don’t know where you went to school, but we were too smoked up and drunk to carry a gun,” Bloomberg said, after describing a conversation with an Oklahoma lawmaker about legislation banning guns on college campuses.

The “smoked up” comment came after Bloomberg described how powerful his job is.

“Where else would I run an organization with 330,000 employees? I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh-biggest army in the world,” Bloomberg said.

"My own army." I wonder how the brave men and women who risk their lives every day to protect the people and property of the greatest city on the world feel about being referred to as Mayor Mike's own private militia.

Of course, Mayor Mike can't be blamed for his youthful indiscretions; it's clearly the fault of his teachers! If only we had a system in place back when Mayor Mike was toking up and doing beer bongs that based teacher pay on Mayor Mike's performance on standardized tests. Yeah, that would have been just so great...

But Mayor Mike's biggest bombs had to be dropped on teachers:

But the mayor's below the Beltway shots weren't reserved for just Washington — he also slapped the dunce cap on the country's teachers. 

“We don’t hire the people who are at the top of their class anymore," he told the audience at the elite Massachusetts school. 

“In America, they come from the bottom 20 percent and not of the best schools."

Hey, way to pump up the NYC teacher corps, Mike! And it's so practical to think the teachers of America are all going to come from top-50 colleges when we have over 3 million teachers in this country.

Wait - Mayor Mike knows how to solve that problem!

In a perfect world, he said he would cut the number of teachers in half and double their compensation, in an effort to improve the quality of instruction. 

“Double the class size with a better teacher is a good deal for the students,” he said, adding that teachers unions' pushes for smaller classes around the country have driven down salaries.

Bull. What's driven down salaries is historically low taxation for the insanely wealthy like... Mayor Mike!

But I'm sure the best and the brightest at MIT, where Mayor Mike was speaking, are enthralled at the thought of teaching 40 kindergarteners for $78,000 - twice the average starting salary of a teacher. Yes, 40 five year olds, crammed in a class with an Ivy League poli-sci major - but the money is so awesome! What could go wrong? I'm sure there are more than enough of these creme de la creme undergrads ready to sign on to teach in these conditions in Camden and Detroit and South Central and the Bronx and...

Did I ever mention on this blog that people like Mayor Mike are clowns without the slightest idea of what the hell they are talking about? That they can't even do their own jobs, yet they tell teachers in the nastiest of tones how to do theirs?

I did? Good.

Uncommon Ground

Speaking of B4K and Student First's "partnership":

My blogging buddy Mike Lilley of B4K teamed up with Tim Shelton of Students First to write an op-ed that purports to show that corporate "reformers" and teachers unions are really all on the same page:

From President Obama to Gov. Chris Christie to the New Jersey Education Association to Michelle Rhee, a national consensus is emerging that significant changes must come to public education.

It would have been unthinkable as recently as a year ago, but today the issue isn’t whether the political will exists in New Jersey to disrupt the status quo but how quickly change will come and how far-reaching will it be.

Wow - the NJEA has gone from being the defender of bad teachers to being on the side of the corporate reform angels. Could it be some corporate reform folks are sensing the tide is not shifting very much in their favor?

Well, what are these bold proposals to make "significant changes"?

Better Education for Kids’ vision for reform is based on four common-sense tenets. First, the interests of students must be the first priority. Second, there must be an effective teacher in every classroom. Third, teachers must be given the necessary training and resources to be effective. And fourth, all public policy — and all administrative and personnel policies — must support these goals.

Platitudes! Get yer platitudes here! Fresh from the focus group! The sweet taste of cliches, wrapped in meaninglessness! Platitudes here!

Wait, that's not entirely fair. They do actually talk a bit about real policy:

Teacher evaluations: The NJEA has acknowledged, and we agree, that a strong evaluation system is the key to other important reforms such as tenure reform. We both also agree that the current evaluation system is not rigorous enough and needs improvement.

New Jersey must develop a fair, transparent and objective evaluation system that substantially relies on growth in student learning. The new system should have multiple ratings for teachers, be based on both student achievement and teacher practice, and there should be multiple measures of student achievement, including standardized tests. [emphasis mine]

Again: teacher effects account for around 15% of student learning. Important? Absolutely. As much as addressing poverty? Hell, no. And when these people finally present some real evidence that there are thousands and thousands of "bad" teachers, running around and telling kids "e before i" and "just ignore the parentheses in this equation," give me a call.

But why in the world standardized tests - error prone, poorly scored, secretive, meant-to-judge-kids-and-not-teachers standardized tests - should be included here is absolutely beyond me. Why do these people fixate on this so much? Why do they so badly want kids filling in bubbles all year?

Oh, yeah: that...

Continuing:

Professional development and mentoring: It is imperative that professional development be focused on student learning and tied into the evaluation system so that teachers get the help they need to improve and succeed.

To this end, Better Education for Kids — or, B4K — supports establishing the position of “teacher leader.” Teacher leaders would coach and mentor other teachers, including inexperienced or ineffective ones, and be recognized and rewarded for their elevated professional status and additional responsibilities. B4K sees this as a creative way to encourage the best teachers, spread best practices and give teachers the help they need to succeed.

Hey, fellas? We've got this thing called National Board Certification. Teachers can police themselves. You know, like all other professionals. Just thought I'd mention it.

Tenure reform: B4K believes that tenure should be earned rather than automatically bestowed after three years of teaching. Specifically, tenure should be earned after three consecutive “effective” annual ratings. Conversely, tenure should be lost either after two consecutive “ineffective” ratings or three ratings of “partially effective” or lower within any five-year period. After being given reasonable opportunity to improve, underperforming teachers should be removed.

Seriously, why go through all this nonsense? If a teacher is bad, give him the chance to get better; if he doesn't improve, fire him. Just make it easier, cheaper, and faster to go through due process - just like NJEA has proposed.

And why all the different levels? As my man Matt DiCarlo points out, there is no evidence to support a four-tiered system of teacher evaluation.

What it really comes down to is this: removing tenure is equivalent to removing due process. B4K and SF want to fast-track teachers into losing their jobs without having administrators have to explain why the teachers are being fired; they want to let the bubble tests do all the work of actually managing teachers. Tests that are inaccurate, given to students who were not randomly assigned to teachers. Talk about a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Appeals: B4K recognizes that the current appeals process is so costly and time-consuming that it effectively prevents the removal of ineffective teachers. Accordingly, we believe appeals should be limited to claims that the proper process was not substantially followed and to higher authority within the New Jersey education system, not outside it.

In other words: let's make appeals easier by not allowing them for any but the most superficial reasons. Because it's not like there's a history of corruption and cronyism in New Jersey or anything...

I'm sensing some weasel words here: "...higher authority within the NJ education system..." Well, tenure cases are appealed to the Commissioner right now; he's within the system. So what are they proposing to change?

Whether appeals are within the education system or not isn't the point: it's whether or not they are outside the highly political world of school boards. Appeals must reside outside of these boards; if they don't, the lessons of Elizabeth will be revisited on us all.

Seniority: When layoffs are required, B4K believes that effectiveness as measured by the evaluation system should be the primary determinant of a teacher’s standing. This puts students’ interests first. After that, seniority should be considered. When transfers are sought, mutual consent of the teacher and principal should be required.

If you've read the blog, you know the deal: as long as senior teachers make more than junior teachers, they will be targeted. This will lead to churn in the profession, which will cause it to stop being a "profession."

Aside from that: why are these people so obsessed with layoffs? One would think that, if they care so very much about the munchkins, they would be fighting tooth and nail against layoffs. Yet they blithely accept that more and more layoffs are in the future of our schools. Why?

Oh, yeah: that...

Wait a minute: where are the calls for vouchers? What about charter schools? Isn't that a big part of what B4K and SF want? Why isn't that here? Maybe these guys are realizing the public isn't buying it.

I actually take this op-ed as a positive sign. After hammering teachers, their unions, and public schools, these guys have figured out that the act is getting stale. Folks aren't buying the snake oil they're pitching anymore. So they're shifting with the winds that are blowing back against the corporate reformers.

See, if they can go back to their funders with something - anything! - that says "we won!" they'll be nice and secure in their reformy, think-tanky jobs:

So look for more "compromise" coming soon. But do yourself a favor: don't believe it for one second.

Your Moment of Sanity

Tonight, courtesy of Howard Wainer:

But focusing on the difference blinds us to what has been a remarkable success in education over the past 20 years. Although the direction and size of student improvements are considered across many subject areas and many age groups, I will describe just one -- 4th grade mathematics. In the figure, the dots represent the average scores for all states that are available for NAEP's 4th grade mathematics test (with New Jersey's dot labeled for emphasis). These are shown broken down by race (black and white students) as well as by year (1992 and 2011). We can see that there have been steep gains for both racial groups over this period (somewhat steeper gains for blacks than for whites). Of course we can also see the all-too-familiar gap between the performance of black and white students, but here comes Achilles. New Jersey's black students performed as well in 2011 as New Jersey's white students did in 1992. Given the consequential differences in wealth between these two groups, which has always been inextricably connected with student performance, reaching this mark is an accomplishment worthy of applause, not criticism.

The last thing that we see is that the performance of New Jersey's students was among the very best of all states in both years and for both ethnic groups. [emphasis mine]

And if this distinguished scientist isn't enough to convince you, how about a snarky teacher-blogger (back in April)?

On National Assessment of Educational Progress for 2009, State A's 8th Graders score a 293 in mathematics (tying for 3rd in the nation). White kids score a 302 (also 3rd); black kids score a 267 (9th). The gap between the two is 34 points (tied for 31st).

State B's 8th Graders score a 270 (tied for 47th in the nation) in math. White kids score a 271 (50th - yes, that's right, LAST in the nation!); black kids a 263 (tied for 17th). The gap between the two is only 7 points (1st in the nation).

So: all of State A's kids do better than State B's. The black kids do better in State A. The white kids do WAY better in State A.

But Chris Christie claims State B is doing better than State A. Is he insane, stupid, lying, or some combination of the three?

Oh, and guess what (I knew you were waiting for this)? State B is West Virginia; State A is New Jersey. Is everyone rushing down the Turnpike to get their kid enrolled in one of those "superior" West Virginia schools?

The reason New Jersey has a higher "achievement gap" is because, although our poorer, black, and Hispanic kids do relatively well compared to the national average, our white and wealthier kids do SPECTACULARLY well! We should be PROUD of this!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: anyone who talks about the "achievement gap" is probably selling snake oil.

And, if you're really worried about the "gap" - why are you imposing all of these idiotic "reforms" on schools on both sides of that gap? Is it because you want to bring the high performing schools down lower? That would certainly fix the gap; wouldn't do much for the kids, though...

Follow the Money

This one is a little complicated, but I'll try to make it worth your while:

We'll start with Rupert Murdoch, who is, of course, stinking rich from running his media empire, which includes the rabidly right-wing Fox News - a favored media stop for NJ Governor Chris Christie.

Last year, Murdoch apparently way overpaid for a company called Wireless Generation, which is an education services contractor. He installed former NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein as the president of the company, which turned out to be a smart investment, as Klein (a former lawyer in the Clinton administration) also serves as his consigliere during the phone-hacking scandal Murdoch is embroiled in.

It's worth noting that Wireless Generation is the company that allegedly screwed up New Jersey's Race To The Top application, costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars.

Wireless Generation was pursuing a $27 million no-bid contract with New York state to build a data system to track student performance - presumably as part of a teacher evaluation system. That contract took a dive when the phone hacking scandal broke. But there is no doubt: Wireless Generation is on the prowl for new business.

This bears repeating: Rupert Murdoch has a vested interest in education "reform." He makes money when states embrace teacher evaluation systems based on standardized testing.

Now, according to Stephen Brill, Murdoch has given as much as $50 million to Michelle Rhee's "reform" group, Students First. Despite Rhee's many shortcomings as both a teacher and as Washington DC's former schools chancellor, Rhee has vowed to raise one billion dollars in an effort to promote her agenda, which includes teacher evaluations based on standardized tests and charter schools.

OK, let's bring this to New Jersey. Recently, Students First partnered with Derrell Bradford's B4K, an organization that has both an "advocacy" arm (run by Bradford) and a PAC (run by a Wall Street vet and my blogging buddy, Mike Lilley). Both organizations have not yet had to release any documentation as to where their funds have come from, or where they have been disbursed. But press reports, and their own press releases, tell us a few things:

B4K, by its own account,  involved itself in four races for the NJ Assembly. Two of their candidates won: Troy Singleton and Gabby Mosquera. B4K is happy to crow about their win, although Mosquera's win was pretty much preordained by redrawing the district, and Singleton avoided a primary challenge by appointment from the Norcross South Jersey machine.

In other words: it's not as if Mosquera's or Singleton's victories were much in question (Mosquera's less than Singleton's). Yet B4K threw money behind them. Yes, granted, they also backed two losers; still, why put this money behind two pretty much foregone conclusions?

Well, let's review:

Joel Klein's Wireless Generation exists to make money for Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch gives money to Michelle Rhee's Students First. Students First "partners" with Derrell Bradford's B4K - we don't know how the money flows here, but:

By working together, with your help, in the interest of children, this new alliance will surely be able to follow the lead of states like Florida, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio and Tennessee, which enacted comprehensive education reforms in recent months. We couldn't do this work without your support. Thanks for your efforts. We look forward to working with you in New Jersey. [emphasis mine]

Yes, indeed: Students First was happy to jump into the Michigan political landscape. Rhee has a history of involving herself in politics. And she has her own particular political bent. So we may not have the particulars, but there is certainly a history of Rhee supporting particular candidates.

And Student First's partner, B4K, gives money to the candidacies of NJ legislators.

So, let's look at our diagram again. It seems as if the circle is broken. How would we close it?

Hmm...

Two Americas

Herbert Gans in the New York Times:

When the jobless recovery ends and the economy is restored to good health, today’s surplus will be reduced. New technology and the products and services that accompany it will create new jobs. But unless the economy itself changes, eventually many of these innovations may be turned over to machines or the jobs may be sent to lower-wage economies.

In fact, if modern capitalism continues to eliminate as many jobs as it creates — or more jobs than it creates — future recoveries will not only add to the amount of surplus labor but will turn a growing proportion of workers into superfluous ones.

What could be done to prevent such a future? America will have to finally get serious about preserving and creating jobs — and on a larger, and more lasting, scale than Roosevelt’s New Deal. Private enterprise and government will have to think in terms of industrial policy, and one that emphasizes labor-intensive economic growth and innovation. Reducing class sizes in all public schools to 15 or fewer would require a great many new teachers even as it would raise the quality of education.

Kevin Riordan in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Like other members, Davis, Pizzo and Kramer say they want to restore the patriotic, exceptional, constitutional America they remember.

They believe in God and in hard work. They want immigration laws enforced and English spoken, and they want America to get out of hock.

"It's absolutely horrendous," Pizzo says, "that the country cannot live within budgets."

To them, Barack Obama is a socialist in all but name who presides over a bloated government that spends too much of our money while seeking to micromanage our lives.

Public school curriculums, they say, have swapped out patriotism for pabulum; the media are biased; and radicals from the '60s and '70s are running/ruining America. And as for that Occupy movement, let's not go there.

"It's reprehensible, their hatred of those who have achieved," Kramer says. "Redistribution of wealth is the direction . . . [but] the good news is, it has become so blatant that a lot of people are waking up."

To its members, the tea party offers hope.

"What our forefathers had established for us was fading away," Pizzo says. "I really felt something had to be done. And fortunately, there was the tea party."

For me, Gans is speaking irrefutable truths. But I see no way to convince these ladies of that. We are in a political stalemate.

I really have no idea what to do about this situation.