



Friday, April 28, 2017

The Task of Your Life

  • In 1902 Dr. George Frederick Still included it in a lecture on "some abnormal psychical conditions in children."
  • Later in the 20th century it was referred to as, the brain-injured child syndrome, minimal brain damage, and minimal brain dysfunction.
  • By the 1960s it was "Hyperkinetic Reaction of Childhood."
It wasn't until the 1980s that the term Attention Deficit Disorder was included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

The latest version, the DSM-5, published in 2013, separates the disorder into three distinct types, or "presentations." The three, simply put, are 1) hyperactive, 2) inattentive, and 3) combined. People still argue about the terms "hyperactive" and "deficit." Adults with ADHD are often driven, energetic, and impulsive, but the term hyperactivity is considered childish and insulting. Children and adults with ADHD might seem not to be able to pay attention, but chances are that they are paying attention to too much, and not able to isolate that to which they are supposed to be paying attention. Attention deficit, then, is actually an attention excess.


Hank Green, of Vlogbrothers fame, recently did a video blog (vlog) entry about his own experience with ADHD.

Coincidentally, I answered a Facebook question about a similar disorder about the same time as Hank's video was released. The Facebook question implied that the disorder wasn't real and was just an excuse for misbehavior.

It may be true that some doctors over-diagnose ADHD, but that doesn't mean that the condition doesn't exist. To those who live with ADHD it's very real (the DSM-5 gives specific criteria for the diagnosis which you can read here).

[In fact, some argue that ADHD is under-diagnosed. See ADHD CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND, below.]

Two of the most important criteria in diagnosing ADHD are, 1) in order to be diagnosed as ADHD,  the condition cannot be better explained as another disorder (such as anxiety disorder, depression, etc.) and 2) as Hank explained it...
Disorders are only classified as disorders when they're ongoing, frustrating, impairments.
In other words, a rambunctious, active child is not necessarily suffering from ADHD if his behaviors are within the normal range and there is no impairment in social and occupational (school) functioning. In other words, if it doesn't cause serious problems in social situations, home, or at work or school, it's not ADHD no matter how "hyper" the behavior.

For example...
Child A reads adequately, but has difficulty concentrating and remembering. He often falls asleep when reading, does not complete homework, and has trouble remembering details. He has high intellectual ability, but fails academically because of 1) his inability to remember things he reads and 2) his inability to pay attention during discussions. Furthermore, he has a tendency to fly off the handle at real or imagined slights. He reacts without thinking and often becomes enraged if things don't go his way. He is frequently impulsive and will often do things which cause upset to others due to his inability to control his behavior and speech. Because of this he has difficulty in social situations and is often isolated. 

Child B has some trouble sitting still. He needs a lot of room to move around and sometimes breaks things at home because of his inability to control his large motor movements. His mother has put valuable pieces away and has provided a place in the basement where he can jump and play without breaking things. He is encouraged to go outside whenever the weather permits to "run it off." At school he will sometimes drop things during class, or bump into people, but is generally easy to get along with and is an above average student. At recess he is constantly active, but is able to settle down when he returns to the classroom.
In the examples above, Child A is the child with ADHD. While he is not hyperactive he is inattentive, impulsive, and unable to focus and remember things. This condition is causing problems both at school and at home, and among his peers. Child B shows some symptoms of "hyperactivity," but those symptoms aren't getting in the way of his social functioning and school achievement. After discounting other possible conditions, a competent professional will correctly make a diagnosis of ADHD for Child A.


ADHD can be debilitating. About half of all children with ADHD also suffer from a related condition such as a learning disability, or have symptoms of another disorder like depression or anxiety. Treatment for ADHD varies with the patient. Hank describes what's needed for treatment.
There's kind of two parts to minimizing the negative effects of your brain not working...normal. [1] Changing the environment to suit the brain, and then [2] there's improving the functionality of the brain itself through things like medications or mindfulness or exercise.
The second one is how most children and adults are treated for ADHD. Therapy, biofeedback, and medications are all tools professionals can use to help patients cope with the symptoms of ADHD. Treatment is important because, like Hank said,
Figuring out how to live in your own mind and your own body is, like, the task of your life.
Full disclosure: Child A, above, was me.
I went to elementary school in the mid 50s and was diagnosed with minimal brain dysfunction (MBD).

Back then Ritalin was used to treat kids diagnosed with MBD and hyperactivity. Since I wasn't hyperactive, I received no medications, or any other treatment, for the condition.

Most of my elementary teachers were kind and patient, but weren't sure how to help a student who couldn't remember what he read and couldn't focus when explanations were given.

By the time I got to middle school the diagnosis was forgotten (or discounted), possibly because I wasn't hyperactive, and probably because, even though I wasn't a very good student, I was "getting by." As the content became more difficult, I was given less and less leeway and words like "lazy" began to haunt me. Teachers would report that I "didn't try hard enough," ask me "why don't you listen?" and comment that I was smart, but just "not willing to put forth any effort."

Meanwhile, I had learned (through a massive personal effort) to control my temper (see Child A, above). I still embarrassed myself repeatedly by blurting out the wrong thing at the wrong time, but at least the fights occurred less often.

Every school year started with me promising myself that I would do better. I promised to keep up with my classwork, and pay attention in class...but after a few weeks I was already lost and far enough behind that catching up was rarely an option.

Hurtful and embarrassing phrases directed at my "deficit" increased...from school and home. I became convinced that I wasn't very bright. My friends were good students, but there must be something wrong with me. I often heard the dialogue in my head, "What were you thinking?" "You're just lazy," "You're just not trying," "Maybe you're not really smart after all." The phrases and lectures were, I'm sure, meant to encourage me, but instead they taught me that I was incompetent, incapable, and inept.

Somehow, and with a significant amount of help (and many mistakes), I got by. I even went to college and earned a teaching degree...and I only almost flunked out once.

During my teaching years I continued to question my ability and competence, despite receiving good reviews from principals and positive feedback from colleagues and administrators. After spending 20 years in general education classrooms, I moved into a position as a reading specialist. When offered the job I jumped at the chance. Here was an opportunity to help children who were struggling in class, like I did when I was their age.

As part of my work diagnosing learning problems, I began to learn about students with learning disabilities and ADHD. Reading about the struggles students had with reading and ADHD was like reading my own biography. Finally, after all that time (I was nearly 50), I began to understand the source of my own academic and social failures.


I was fortunate. A few of the bullets below apply to me, but I have been able to get by in life with a bit of luck, hard – sometimes stressful – work, and most of all, the patience and help of family, friends, and professionals. Most people who have untreated ADHD are not so lucky.

When left untreated ADHD can
  • Lower educational attainment
  • Negatively impact employment
  • Increase interpersonal problems
  • Reduce earnings
  • Increase emergency room admissions
  • Result in greater healthcare utilization
People with untreated ADHD are
  • More likely to be divorced
  • More likely to suffer from anxiety
  • More likely to have traffic accidents
  • Twice as likely to smoke cigarettes
  • Six times more likely to suffer depression
  • Twice as likely to abuse drugs or alcohol
  • Four times more likely to have sexually transmitted diseases
Untreated ADHD: Lifelong Risks [emphasis added]
Children with ADHD who fare the best are those who have effective parents, are correctly diagnosed, and receive a combination of psychological, behavioral, educational, and pharmacological interventions. Yet even when treated, ADHD has a significant impact on an individual from childhood through adulthood.

When ADHD is left unmanaged, every area of life is negatively affected. In fact, research shows that untreated ADHD is one of the most highly impairing disorders to live with.
Kids, and adults, with ADHD are not just "normal kids being kids." In order to be classified as a disorder it has to be beyond what is "normal" and have a significant impact on one's ability to function in society. With appropriate treatment, however, children and adults with ADHD can thrive.


Two recent articles from ADDitude Magazine suggest that large numbers of children and adults are having trouble getting treatment, for two separate reasons.

First, children of color are not being identified as having ADHD at the same rate as white children when, in fact, the condition is present and consistent among all racial, ethnic, and economic groups.

Children Left Behind
The reasons for the discrepancy based on race and ethnicity is complicated, but one factor is health insurance inequity. It's clear that a significant number of children and adults with ADHD are "falling through the health care cracks" based on the fact that health insurance rates are lower for people of color. Children are struggling in school because of lack of diagnoses. Adults are struggling with job loss, relationship issues, substance abuse problems, and other symptoms of ADHD because of the inability to afford treatment.

The lack of insurance, coupled with diagnostic biases – assuming that "certain" kids are just "bad" or "uncivilized" instead of seeking a neurological source for misbehavior, the taboo of mental health issues, and fear of medication are all part of the problem.

Second, the lack of health insurance is not the only economic issue when it comes to affording medical care. Often insurance doesn't cover the complete cost of treatment. ADHD diagnosis and treatment can cost thousands of dollars a year when one factors in medication, psychiatrists, and therapy. When health care dollars are short, an "invisible" diagnosis like ADHD has a tendency to get slighted.

ADDitude surveyed readers and found that people often found ways to work around the limitations of poor or non-existing health insurance. Sometimes this "working around" meant not getting needed treatment.

“We Can’t Afford to Treat Our ADHD”
A learning specialist in a private school, in New Orleans, tells a variation on this story. Both she and her two children have been diagnosed with ADHD, but her insurance plan pays only 60 percent of her family’s health expenses, making it impossible to pay for services like occupational therapy, speech, and behavior therapy for her two children. She estimates that she spent more than $5,400 out of pocket on medications and therapists in 2016.

In her job, she says, she often talks to wealthy parents “who come to me crying” about the high costs of paying for ADHD treatment, making her worried about the comparative pressures on parents with fewer resources.
Given the fact that untreated ADHD is so damaging, we can't afford to ignore the consequences of this health issue.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

2017 Medley #13

Choice, Alternate Facts, Tenure, Testing,
Virtual Charters, Accountability,
Lead Poisoned Children


School Choice: The Faustian Bargain

"...corporate education reformers," says Russ Walsh in this blog post, "are anti-democracy." That statement rings true, especially now, at the end of this year's Indiana General Assembly Session. Legislation making the state's Superintendent of Public Instruction an appointed position first failed, and then passed the General Assembly after significant political manipulations from legislators who were anxious to take the right to vote for education away from the people. The state Board of Education is already filled with political appointees, and now, beginning in 2025, the office of the Superintendent will be as well making Indiana one of only six states where both the executive head of the Department of Education and the members of state's board of education are appointed.

These are the same anti-democratic legislators who have spent the last half dozen years transferring tax money from public schools to the pockets of corporate charters and church-run private schools. The budget for this year, for example, gives public schools a 1.6% increase while increasing funding for "Choice Scholarships" (vouchers) by 7% and giving SGO tax credits a whopping 31%...all paid for with public tax dollars.

Unfortunate goal of school choice movement

The goal of "reformers" is, apparently, the complete and total destruction of public education.
Many years ago, Jerry Falwell articulated the goal of the school choice movement well when he said, "I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!"
This op-ed by David R. Currie, Ph.D., of Pastors for Texas Children, could easily have been written about the state of Indiana.
Vouchers, school choice, education savings accounts — they are all code words intended to mask the real aim of this movement: destroy public education in America and turn all schools into institutions of religious indoctrination.


THIS Is What’s Wrong With America

Congressman: "Don't confuse me with facts..."
A Facebook friend who lives in Todd Rokita’s Congressional district attended his recent Town Hall. In a post following the event, she reported on an exchange she had with the Congressman:

My question was “What evidence do you require in order to revise your opinion on climate change?”

His response was “No evidence could ever exist that would change my mind. It’s all Liberal science.”
...I really never expected to live in a country where science and empirical research required defense, but evidently Luddites aren’t simply historical oddities. So later this morning, I will join other Hoosiers at the Statehouse to participate in a “March for Science.”


Checker Still Doesn't Understand Tenure

"Reformist" politicians in Indiana have frequently commented on how there are too many well-rated teachers. The complaint is that if there are so many "A" or "B" rated teachers, why aren't there more "A" or "B" rated schools?

This reflects a basic misunderstanding of the process of education and why it's essential that educators participate in the policy-making process. Yet we continue to see "education" conferences, panels, and gatherings where the teachers' voices are absent. We continue to see the federal government education department staffed with non-educators – and those who are hostile to public education. We continue to see the movement for laws and policies which restrict teachers' ability to do their job.
...instead of saying, "Hey, teachers are mostly well-rated, so the profession must be in good shape," reformsters say, "Hey, teachers are mostly well-rated, so the evaluation system must be broken, because we just know that a huge number of teachers suck." So, data is good, unless it conflicts with your pre-conceived biases, in which case, just throw the data out.
"Tenure" is perhaps the most misunderstood concept in K-12 education. It's also a concept which "reformers" disingenuously claim, allows teachers a "job for life." "Tenure" in K-12 education doesn't mean "a job for life" as Chester Finn of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute believes. Instead, the K-12 version of "tenure" simply provides teachers with due process.

In Indiana, when K-12 teachers had tenure, teachers who administrations wanted to fire were allowed a hearing before an impartial observer. When administrators did their jobs, teachers who were guilty of immorality, incompetence, or illegal behavior, were fired. Since 2011, however, teachers in Indiana longer have "tenure." A teacher who is going to be fired may request a meeting with the superintendent, or with the school board, but no impartial observer is required.
...while there are some large districts where the process is long, convoluted and prohibitively difficult, mostly "We can't fire her because if tenure" is administrator-speak for "I could fire her, but it would take a lot of time and I'd have to, you know, work really hard, and then I would have to find a replacement and you know how hard that would be and I'm already backed up on meetings this week and now some kid just threw up in the hall, so how about I just blame her on the union and tenure and get back to my own work." Where burdensome dismissal procedures exist, they have been negotiated into contracts. Fixing those contracts by outlawing tenure is like fixing the electoral college by installing a dictatorship-- little bit of overkill.


The Wrong Medicine

When school "reform" was in its infancy the "reformers" insisted that their policies would improve student achievement and reduce the economic/racial achievement gap. After several decades of "reformist" policies such as excessive testing and test prep, vouchers, and charter schools, the results are in. Students do no better now than they did before the "reforms" were initiated.

One of the worst problems features of "reform" is the overuse and misuse of standardized testing. Teachers no longer use test results to guide their instruction because, in most cases, the results of the tests are not timely or specific enough to help. When results are finally returned, they are used to evaluate teachers, grade schools and school systems, and as justification for closing neighborhood schools, none of which are appropriate or valid uses of the test scores.
At what point do parents, teachers, and administrators stand up and say “Enough is enough?” When do we begin to refuse to allow the removal of even one more dollar from our classrooms to continue to support this enormous exercise in futility.

How about now? Today.

The right number of standardized tests that we should be forcing down the throats of our children is precisely zero. The tests do not help our children, our teachers, or our parents. They have not improved education in America one bit.


Virtual Schools in the U.S. 2017

Note the recommendations in this report – virtual charter schools should be held to the same accountability standards as public schools.

During her confirmation hearing, when Senator Tim Kaine asked her about equal accountability for private and privately run schools accepting public tax dollars, Secretary DeVos repeated the phrase, "I support accountability" over and over again, refusing to answer whether all schools should be held to the same accountability. This report would seem to indicate that the answer to the question should have been "Yes, all schools receiving tax dollars should be held to the same accountability standards."
Given the rapid growth of virtual schools and blended schools, the populations they serve, and the relatively poor performance of virtual schools on widely used accountability measures, it is recommended that:

  • Policymakers slow or stop the growth in the number of virtual schools and the size of their enrollments...
  • Policymakers should carefully and continuously monitor the performance of fulltime blended schools...
  • Authorities charged with oversight should specify and enforce sanctions for virtual and blended schools that fail to perform adequately.
  • Policymakers should specify a maximum student-teacher ratio for virtual and blended schools...
  • Policymakers should regulate school and class sizes...
  • State agencies ensure that virtual schools and blended schools fully report data related to the population of students they serve and the teachers they employ...
  • State agencies should continue the work they’ve started in revising accountability systems...
  • Policymakers and other stakeholders should also support more research on exactly how special education is being provided in virtual and blended schools....


Marc Edwards – How to Address the U.S. Water Crisis in Flint and Beyond

Is your water safe?


Thursday, April 20, 2017

Listen to This (Random Quotes) #5


Defeating the DeVos Agenda

Competing on an uneven playing field, public school corporations have taken to advertising in order to keep their students from going to charter schools or using vouchers to attend private schools. Instead, John Merrow offers additional advice on how to "advertise" by involving community members, especially those who have no current connections to the public schools.

Public schools belong to their communities, not to the school board members, or the parents of current students. Schools are investments in a community's future, paid for by everyone, for the benefit of everyone. Closing schools and opening charters, or offering vouchers, is taking years of community investment and throwing it away.

From John Merrow
Only when ‘outsiders’ become convinced that what’s happening in our public schools is not just test-prep and rote learning pushed on sullen teenagers by demoralized instructors, only then will Betsy DeVos and her militant Christian army of ideologues and profiteers lose this war.


Piecemeal Privatization of Arts and Music in Public Schools

The latest Kappan (April, 2017) is focused on the Arts.

Many school systems in the U.S. have had to cut back on their arts programming due to budget cuts and the obsessive focus on reading and math. Music and art teachers are stretched thin trying to educate large numbers of children in areas that aren't tested, and therefore, not considered important by "reformers." Articles in the journal discuss the influx of public/private partnerships which are replacing in-house education specialists in places. Nancy Bailey acknowledges that these partnerships are beneficial where no arts programming exists, but the loss of the arts programming is the real problem.

From Nancy Bailey
This country needs to quit with the trickery. Pretending the arts are returning with partnerships, or through subject integration, or technology, is only a charade. Our tax dollars should go directly to public schools for these programs and to real arts and music teachers.


Truth in Edvertising

Are private and privately run schools better than traditional public schools, or do they just have better PR and better advertising? Traditional schools don't usually spend money on advertising because money spent on advertising isn't spent on instruction.

Are schools commodities like widgets, where money needs to be spent on advertising? If we, as a society, accept the marketplace version of education...if we accept that competition improves education...if we accept that it's up to the parent to find the school with the best "fit" for their child...then public education will probably not be a priority.

On the other hand, if we accept that public education benefits the whole society...that public education is a public good, then we won't waste money on advertising, and the "bottom line" will be educating our children, not turning a profit.

From Sarah Butler Jessen on Have You Heard Blog and Podcast
There’s been a lot of talk about how much money they [Success Academy] spend. We were able to look at some of their budgets from the 2012 and 2013 year, along with a bunch of other charter management and charter organizations in New York City authorized by SUNY. Again, as we raised in recent earlier article about the 2010 data, in Williamsburg and Cobble Hill in particular in that year, they're spending more than $1,000 per entered student on marketing alone.


Democrats link party rivals to DeVos as 2018 fights emerge

In Indiana it's the Republicans who support so-called "education reforms" which have the effect of damaging public education, deprofessionalizing public school teachers, and re-segregating our schools. But it's not just a Republican movement. It's bipartisan. There are Democrats across the nation who are apparently hell-bent on replacing public education with privatized, corporate, charter schools.

Cory Booker (and here)...Andrew Cuomo...Rahm Emanuel...

From Jed Wallace, president of the California Charter Schools Association
“What’s happened over time is that we have seen the Legislature has changed very significantly, and we’ve really seen that among Democrats, we have just many more folks that are supportive of charter schools,” he said. "Do these national winds, do they affect things here? Absolutely, absolutely. But it’s not like we’re just going to be blown across the map.”

Still, Wallace suspected charter school opponents would view DeVos’ appointment as a political opportunity to cut into charter schools’ gains.

“Yeah, that’s going to happen, and we have to be aware of that,” he said.


Trump Restocks the Swamp

President Trump promised to "drain the swamp" telling the American people that the government wouldn't be made up of special interests and their lobbyists.

From Ed Brayton
[Trump] criticized Obama for his lack of transparency, yet just reversed the policy of releasing visitor logs so the public could know if the president or his close advisers were meeting with lobbyists and others with a clear stake in public policy. And a man whose big selling point was that he was rich so he would not be beholden to big corporations and the wealthy. Yet you’d be hard-pressed to name a single thing he’s done since taking office that wasn’t what moneyed interests would want him to to in order to make him more money.

Update for Trump Voters

From Robert Reich



IN: Welcome UPSTART Pre-K Cyberschool

Putting a three- or four-year-old in front of a computer screen and calling it "pre-school" is the most insane thing to come out of the education "reform" cesspool.

From Peter Greene
...we're assured that UPSTART will provide "program sponsors" with data. Because, you know, it's never too early to start building your tiny human's data file, so that the trouble she had picking out vowel sounds when she was four flippin' years old can follow her around for the rest of her life.

In Indiana, the legislature wants to make UPSTART part of the Pre-K expansion bill.


Standardized Testing Creates Captive Markets

The Republicans have railed for years against the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) and it's forced health insurance mandates. Yet, forced testing mandates, which every state must waste tax dollars on, is supported.

A must read...

From Steven Singer


Teacher Tenure and Seniority Lawsuits: A Failure of Logic

They're not giving up. Even after the Vergara Decision was overturned anti-teacher forces are still fighting against tenure and seniority. Their goal – the complete destruction of teachers unions at any cost, even if it means also destroying the teaching profession.

From Jersey Jazzman
The backers of these lawsuits will make occasional concessions to the idea that schools need adequate and equitable funding to attract qualified people into teaching. But they never seem to be interested in underwriting lawsuits that would get districts like Newark the funds they need to improve both the compensation and the working conditions of teachers.


The War on Public Schools

The Federal government has helped public education by requiring equal access to educational opportunities for all children regardless of race, sex, or disabilities. They have provided funds for disadvantaged students, for teacher preparation and continuing education, and materials.

With No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and the Common Core, the Federal government increased it's influence on public education, but evoked a backlash. It's true that some Federal intrusion into public education is necessary and important...

From the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights quoted in the American Prospect


Closing schools is not an educational option

No school was ever improved by closing it.

From Mitchell Robinson in Eclectablog


Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Punishing Third Graders – Again, and Again, and Again


Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Nick Chiles has an article in the Hechinger Report on Mississippi's third grade punishment law, which, like a similar law in Indiana, makes third graders repeat the grade if they fail a standardized reading test in third grade.

The article focuses on schools in extreme high-poverty counties, in a state where nearly a third of children younger than 18 live in poverty.

What makes Mississippi's third grade punishment law particularly pernicious is the fact that it doesn't end once a child is retained. Repeated retentions are allowed (the article notes that four other states, Florida, North Carolina, Indiana, and Oklahoma, have the same allowances for multiple retentions – aka child abuse).

Is repeating third grade — again and again — good for kids?
...those youngsters who were held back last year can be held back a second time if they can’t pass the test this go-round. That shouldn’t happen if there is any value to Bryant’s idea that holding students back for a year and giving them extra help will improve their literacy...
The "Bryant" in this article is Mississippi Governor, Phil Bryant, a self-proclaimed third grade repeater who claims that he "benefited greatly" by repeating third grade.

It's possible that Governor Bryant survived undamaged his third grade retention, and even thrived as an elementary school student, but his personal experience doesn't negate years of research into grade retention. Neither should his experience at one elementary school in Sunflower County Mississippi be used to justify retaining thousands of Mississippi children who struggle to learn to read.

Bryant thinks that "holding students back for a year and giving them extra help" is all that's needed to improve achievement. First of all, this former deputy sheriff, turned insurance investigator, turned politician, has no background in education and has apparently done no research into the dangers of grade retention.

Second, he's wrong.
...said Monty Neill, executive director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing (also known as FairTest), the advocacy group that has long fought against the widespread use of standardized tests. “In Florida, they found higher test scores in the beginning for the kids who were held back, but the gains dissipated over a few years.”
It's not just in Florida. Research has shown that retained students often show short term improvement, but the long term effects of retention are generally negative, including continued low achievement and higher than average drop-out rate (which increases to more than 90% for children retained more than once).

Neill says the fact that fewer kids were held back last year may be a result of improved reading skills, but could also be “because teachers are prepping them better for the test.”
Standardized tests measure household income, so it's no wonder that schools with high rates of child poverty have plenty of low scorers. One of the schools discussed in the article by Chiles, had a 100% free and reduced lunch population.

This doesn't mean that schools shouldn't try to do all they can to help high-poverty students learn. It does mean, however, that, until the economic playing field has been leveled, the academic playing field will remain uneven. It means that it's unreasonable to expect schools to carry the entire burden of responsibility for the effects of poverty. It means that it's unreasonable to punish students for failure to pass a single, arbitrary, achievement test.

Students ought not to be labeled "failures" based on a questionable assessment, and then punished by an outmoded and damaging "intervention" because they are taking longer than a bureaucratically assigned time to learn to read. Higher test scores do not necessarily indicate more or better learning. Standardized achievement test scores are not the only measures of a child's success. There's more to education than test scores.

High-poverty students often come into school with fewer academic skills than their wealthier peers.
Robinson said too many of her young students are missing valuable phonemic skills — being able to identify the sound each letter makes — when they first come to Finch in kindergarten. She said the school staff is now concentrating on building a stronger reading foundation before students reach third grade.
Schools ought to concentrate on building a strong foundation for reading in pre-school and kindergarten. Frequent, appropriate assessment is also necessary to monitor a child's progress and guide instruction. But not all children learn at the same rate. Not all children will learn to read in first grade. Not all children will read at "grade-level". There is no pedagogical reason for placing high stakes on reading instruction.



What worries Magee is the difficulty too many of her current third graders have taking a test on the computer. Few students have computers at home, so they aren’t used to manipulating the mouse.
Are we testing reading skills, test-taking skills, or computer skills?

Instead of lining corporate (Harcourt Educational Measurement, CTB McGraw-Hill, Riverside Publishing, and NCS Pearson) pockets with millions of tax dollars spent on unnecessary, high stakes, and often inappropriate testing, we should spend our money on appropriate assessments, early intervention, and developmentally appropriate instruction. High stakes testing should be eliminated. Forever.


Saturday, April 15, 2017

2017 Medley #12: Teachers

Why Teachers Quit, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay, Experience Matters 


Previous posts about why teachers quit (more).

Many legislators, privatizers, and "reformers" continue to blame teachers for low achievement. Unionism is anathema to some because teachers unions, in many places, are the only thing preventing the compete corporate takeover of public education. The right wing in America continues to push myths about failing public schools and the dual "solution" of charters and vouchers.

The teacher shortage currently afflicting public education in the U.S. is not surprising. Fewer college students are choosing education as a career due to declining wages, fewer benefits, lower social status, and the constant drumbeat of failure (see here, here, and here).

Public schools are not failing. Public schools reflect the failure of the nation to build an equitable society.

Teacher Resignation Letters Paint Bleak Picture of U.S. Education

Studies are showing what public educators already know...that "reform" is driving teachers from the classroom.

Teacher turnover costs more than $2.2 billion in the U.S. each year and has been shown to decrease student achievement in the form of reading and math test scores.

“The reasons teachers are leaving the profession has little to do with the reasons most frequently touted by education reformers, such as pay or student behavior,” said Dunn, assistant professor of teacher education. “Rather, teachers are leaving largely because oppressive policies and practices are affecting their working conditions and beliefs about themselves and education.”

Teacher resignation letter goes viral: ‘I will not subject my child to this disordered system’

A teacher from Florida tells why she's leaving.

Letter Written Down By A Teacher Goes Viral!

This is not a resignation letter, but this letter from a teacher in Oklahoma is indicative of the problems public school teachers face on a daily basis.
We can no longer afford rolls of colored paper or paint or tape to make signs to support and advertise our Student Council activities. This fall our football team won't charge through a decorated banner as they take the field because we can't afford to make the banner. There won't be any new textbooks in the foreseeable future. Broken desks won't be replaced. We're about to ration copy paper and we've already had the desktop printers taken out of our rooms.

We live in fear that our colleagues will leave us, not just because they are our friends, but because the district wouldn't replace them even if we could lure new teachers to our inner-city schools during the teacher shortage you[, the legislature] have caused. We fear our classes doubling in size.

We fear becoming as ineffective as you are. Not because we can't or won't do our job, like you, but because you keep passing mandates to make us better while taking away all the resources we need just to maintain the status quo. We fear that our second jobs will prevent us from grading the papers we already have to do from home. We fear our families will leave us because we don't have time for them.


Teacher Evaluation: It's About Relationships Not Numbers

If we don't use test scores to evaluate teachers what should we use? This question implies that test scores are not only appropriate to use as a teacher evaluation, but there isn't anything else which is as accurate. That's not true. Using student achievement tests to evaluate teachers (or schools) is an invalid since achievement tests are developed to evaluate students, not their teachers.

A good teacher develops relationships with her students. Good relationships improve the classroom atmosphere and create the feelings of safety and trust necessary for learning. The same is necessary for teacher evaluation; there must be a feeling of trust between the evaluator, usually an administrator, and the teacher. Russ Walsh explains...
Reformers can't see this very simple and most basic fact of teacher evaluation because they are focused on a fool's errand of seeking objectivity through numbers and a plan designed to weed out low performers, rather than a plan designed to improve performance of all teachers. These folks could have easily found out the flaws in the plan. All they needed to do was spend some time in schools talking to teachers and supervisors. To the extent that current teacher evaluation schemes interfere with teachers and supervisors developing trusting relationships, they are pre-ordained to fail.


Just Paying Teachers More Won’t Stop Them From Quitting

Ask most teachers. They will tell you that they didn't choose education because of the high pay. Most people who become teachers do so because they want to make a difference in the lives of children.

"Reformers" don't understand that people don't become teachers for the huge salaries. Autonomy, respect, and a living wage, is enough. Teachers are quitting because in many areas, they aren't getting any of those.
“Teachers have also been subjected to demonization” from people and politicians from both the right and left, said Lawrence Mishel, the president of the Economic Policy Institute and one of the authors of the report, noting that Education Secretary John King in January felt the need to offer what many saw as an apology to teachers after taking over the Education Department. “Despite the best of intentions, teachers and principals have felt attacked and unfairly blamed for the challenges our nation faces as we strive to improve outcomes for all students," King said at the time.

Merit Pay for Teachers Can Lead to Higher Test Scores for Students, a Study Finds

Merit pay is, as Diane Ravitch says, the idea that never works and never dies.

If you define "student learning" simply by a standardized test score, then you might be able to design a merit pay plan which will get higher test scores, but that's not education.

This report in Education Week summarizing research into merit pay, indicates that merit pay helps teachers find ways to increase test scores for some students, oftentimes by learning to "game the system."
Teacher participation in a merit-pay program led to the equivalent of four extra weeks of student learning, according to a new analysis of 44 studies of incentive-pay initiatives in the United States and abroad.

New Merit Pay Study Hits The Wrong Target

Peter Greene follows up on the Education Week report. He emphasizes that testing is not teaching and that "gaming the system" is essentially paying people more who learn how to cheat.

The basis of the research is wrong. Education is not a test score. Learning is not a test score.
Springer's research suffers from the same giant, gaping ridiculous hole as the research that he meta-analyzed-- he assumes that his central measure measures what it claims to measure. This is like meta-analysis of a bunch of research from eight-year-olds who all used home made rulers to measure their own feet and "found" that their feet are twice as big as the feet of eight-year-olds in other country. If you don't ever check their home-made rulers for accuracy, you are wasting everyone's time.

At a minimum, this study shows that the toxic testing that is already narrowing and damaging education in this country can be given a extra jolt of destructive power when backed with money. The best this study can hope to say is that incentives encourage teachers to aim more carefully for the wrong target. As one of the EdWeek commenters put it, "Why on earth would you want to reward teachers with cash for getting higher test scores?" What Springer may have proven is not that merit pay works, but that Campbell's Law does.


New Studies Find That, for Teachers, Experience Really Does Matter

Education is more than a test score. Teachers with experience provide more than test prep for their students.
Researchers Helen F. Ladd and Lucy C. Sorenson, both of Duke University, in Durham, N.C., analyzed records from about 1.2 million middle school students in North Carolina from 2007 to 2011, including absences, reported disciplinary offenses, and test scores. The data also contain responses from 6th through 8th graders about time spent on homework and their reading habits...

Regarding nontest outcomes, the data show that as teachers gained experience, they were linked to lower rates of student absenteeism. The researchers postulate that more experienced teachers got better at motivating students and in classroom management, resulting in better attendance and fewer infractions.


Monday, April 10, 2017

The Myth of America's Failing Public Schools - Part 2

Last month I posted The Myth of America's Failing Public Schools. I tried to show that America's average international test scores are low (in the middle of the pack) because of our embarrassingly high rates of child poverty.

Other factors, however, compound the problem of more than 20% of American children living in poverty.


A major problem in America's schools, for example, is economic and racial segregation.

Christine Organ writes that we've put low-income kids in separate schools that are definitely not equal.

...we’ve created a system that relegates low-income students to the farthest corners of public education. We’ve created a system that, by design, segregates schools by socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity.
Schools in low-income areas don't have the same resources as schools in wealthier areas. The common complaint about "throwing money at schools won't solve the problems" is usually made by someone whose local schools have enough money to provide an adequate education for their children. Personnel, materials, upkeep and maintenance cost money. When an impoverished neighborhood needs to come up with money to support its local school it's going to have more trouble than a wealthier neighborhood.

She continues...
Instead of taking money away from or closing those schools that serve lower-income students, we need to give them more money. We need stop funding schools with property taxes. We need to provide quality summer school programs, parent education classes, and after-school programs. We need to work on making sure that low-income students aren’t also food insecure or coming to school hungry. We need to stop holding PTA fundraisers where parents can “bid” on time with teachers and other activities that give some kids a leg up. We need to pay teachers more and evaluate them on their performance, not on their students’ test scores.

Of course, this will take additional funding, and if our kids go to a school that benefits from this messed up have/have-not system, they might be asked to give up something. But as they say, equality feels like oppression when you’re used to benefiting from your privilege, so get used to feeling a little bit uncomfortable. We all want what’s best for our children, but that can’t come at the expense of other innocent children when it comes to education.
Those of us who have enough must accept that those who don't have enough need more, and it's up to us to share. We should have learned that in kindergarten, after all. Besides, the children of the nation belong to all of us. They are our future. If we improve the lot of "the least among us" we all benefit from an educated workforce and lower incarceration rates. Even if we increased the amount of money going to schools with low-income students by 25% it would still cost less per child than prison...and higher graduation rates means lower prison rates. We would save money in the long run.

Those with more than enough, the 1% of the population who received the largest portion of the post-2008-recovery wealth, need to share as well.

The point is, we're either one nation or we're not. We're either "in this together" or we're not.


"Choice" is the mantra of the school reformers. They insist that parents should have the choice of where they send their children. The truth, however, is that, when it comes to private and privately run schools, it is the school which chooses its students. Private schools which accept vouchers and charter schools using public funds can either not accept students, "counsel out" those who "are not a good fit" or just expel them outright. In this way, they minimize the number of low achieving students who are allowed entrance. Those children who are rejected often the most expensive to educate. They must then return to the public schools. Public schools accept everyone.

Why selection bias is the most powerful force in education
Selection bias hides everywhere in education. Sometimes, in fact, it is deliberately hidden in education. A few years ago, Reuters undertook an exhaustive investigation of the ways that charter schools deliberately exclude the hardest-to-educate students, despite the fact that most are ostensibly required to accept all kinds of students, as public schools are bound to. For all the talk of charters as some sort of revolution in effective public schooling, what we find is that charter administrators work feverishly to tip the scales, finding all kinds of crafty ways to ensure that they don’t have to educate the hardest students to educate. And even when we look past all of the dirty tricks they use – like, say, requiring parents to attend meetings held at specific times when most working parents can’t – there are all sorts of ways in which students are assigned to charter schools non-randomly and in ways that advantage those schools. Excluding students with cognitive and developmental disabilities is a notorious example. (Despite what many people presume, a majority of students with special needs take state-mandated standardized tests and are included in data like graduation rates, in most locales.) Simply the fact that parents typically have to opt in to charter school lotteries for their students to attend functions as a screening mechanism.


Some countries restrict which students go to school and which students take standardized tests. Not in the U.S. We educate everyone, and everyone, even the most academically challenged students, take "the test." Steven Singer explains...



When politicians pander to "reformers" and "reform" minded donors by calling our schools "failures," they do an injustice to America's public schools.

Kelly Day, who blogs at Filling My Map, writes,


Tuesday, April 4, 2017

2017 Medley #11

Lead, Defend Public Education, What Tests Measure, Tenure, Recess, Let's Stop Pretending, Choice, 


The EPA (at least until the department is destroyed under the current "we don't need clean air or water" administration) says that
...there is no known safe level of lead in a child's blood. Lead is harmful to health, especially for children.
Yet, we don't know how much lead is getting into homes around the nation. Last year, USA Today noted that upwards of six million people are drinking from systems deemed unsafe, but there are likely more than that because of the way we test for lead.
...almost 2,000 water systems serving 6 million people nationwide have failed to meet the EPA's standards for lead in drinking water. But people in thousands more communities deemed in compliance with EPA's lead rules have no assurance their drinking water is safe because of the limited and inconsistent ways water is being tested, the investigation found.
How many of America's schools are labeled as "failing" because their children suffer from lead poisoning? How many children's futures are being damaged by unknown amounts of lead in the water?

Is your water safe?

Michigan, Flint Reach Settlement to Replace Lead Pipes
The settlement still needs to be approved by the federal judge presiding in the case. This sounds like a good start, but we need to recognize that Flint was not the only city that has this problem, nor was it the worst. Testing has revealed similar and even higher levels of lead in cities all over the country. The results are devastating for children, dooming many of them in school because of the effect lead has on their brains as they develop. The fact that it tends to be focused in cities with high minority populations only makes it more difficult for those children and families to escape poverty and have stable, productive lives.

E. Chicago residents wait to leave lead-tainted homes


Defending Public Education from Trump's Tyranny

Russ Walsh reviews Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Lesson number 2 is Defend Institutions. Snyder writes,
Walsh, like me, chooses the institution of public education. He writes,
One way we can be sure that Trump and his minions are coming after our institutions is to see who the Tweeter-in-chief has chosen to head up various government departments. Almost to a person (Pruitt, Perry, Price), people who are opposed to the very institutions they are leading have been put in charge. If public education is to survive, we are going to have to fight for it. We cannot sit back and wait for this current nightmare to pass because by the time we wake up, it may be too late. It should be clear to all of us that the institution of public education is under a very real threat from the authoritarian Trump administration and its anti-public schools Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos.


A Whole Bunch of Things that Standardized Tests Cannot Measure

These thirty things which can't be measured by the BS Test (big standardized test - h/t Peter Greene) are only the tip of the iceberg. Standardized tests, which in Indiana, are used to measure teacher effectiveness, also can't measure a teacher's dedication, her understanding of child development, or his empathy for a child's emotional crises...and more.


Below are two posts from Peter Greene who consistently brings clarity to the issues facing America's public schools.


MN: Vergara III: The Attack on Tenure Continues

Another attack on tenure...this time in Minnesota. Let me repeat it once more: "Tenure," for K-12 teachers does not mean a job for life. It simply means due process. How do you get rid of "bad teachers?" Hire good administrators.

FL: Recess Is For Babies

"Florida government-- what the hell is wrong with you?"

That's the question Curmudgucation asks at the end of this post. Why is the state deciding how much time children should spend at recess? Shouldn't that be left to professionals who understand child development...people like pediatricians, child psychologists, or teachers?

Apparently the Florida legislature believes that the length of time children spend at recess has an impact on their test scores. Test scores are the most important thing in Florida (see also Curmudgucation's post, FL: Court Rules in Favor of Stupid) and elsewhere. If test scores are low it must be the fault of teachers, which means children must be punished.

Voting against twenty minutes a day for recess for five year olds...insanity.
But a Florida House of Representatives subcommittee yesterday decided that twenty minutes a day is just too generous...



Can We Please Stop Pretending …?

Let's stop pretending that politicians, legislators, and other policy makers have any clue about what makes a good school.

Let's stop pretending that those same politicians, legislators and policy makers are not directly responsible for much that happens in America's classrooms.

Let's stop pretending that money doesn't matter.

Rob Miller has more...
  4. That class size doesn’t matter.


The masquerade of school choice: a parent’s story

Here is a story of a parent trying to choose the best school for her child. Wouldn't it be nice if the U.S., like Finland and other high achieving nations, provided high quality public schools in every town and neighborhood? Students and their neighborhoods benefit from the stability of public schools. Unfortunately, we're so concerned with figuring out how we can privatize public schools in order to line the pockets of edupreneurs, that we have, in many areas, given up on the public schools.
I navigated the school choice maze as a university professor with good income, flexible hours, reliable transportation, and a strong parent network. Imagine the process of school choice for parents of students attending failing schools, with limited income, or relying on public transportation.

Don’t let school choice trick you. The best way to provide quality across social class, race and ethnicity is to invest in public schools.



From USA Today.

In this article, Neal McCluskey of the Cato Institute said that school choice allows families to "vote with their feet."

That's wrong.

School choice allows families to use their "feet" to look for schools which will accept their children. Schools make the choice, not the students.
Neal McCluskey of the Cato Institute agreed, adding that a federal voucher or tax credit “can essentially push out of the way programs that have been created by states … and that kills what Justice (Louis) Brandeis called ‘laboratories of democracy.’ We want to have states trying different ways of trying to deliver education and school choice, so we can see what works well, what works well for specific populations.”

Noting that school choice allows families to “vote with their feet” by choosing another school, he added, “The way you vote with your feet against the federal government is you’ve got to move to another country, which can be somewhat onerous.”

Petrilli said accepting federal funding could be most painful to private — and especially religious — schools, which will face “really difficult choices.” Would the funding force them to accept LGBTQ students — or teachers, for that matter — against their religious beliefs?

“They just won’t participate,” he said. “And then what’s the point? You don’t have a program.”