Thoughts on #Red for Ed

RED FOR ED RALLY IN INDIANAPOLIS - NOW WHAT?

Thousands of teachers, parents, and public education advocates rally in Indianapolis
November 19, 2019 

How many of the 15,000 – 20,000 Indiana teachers, ESPs, parents, and supporters of public education who rallied at the Capitol on Nov. 19, and the additional thousands who "wore Red for Ed" in their local communities, will fall back into the pattern of voting for the supermajority candidates who brought public school teachers, and public schools...

• the loss of seniority and lessening the value of experience or advanced degrees on salary schedules

• declining salaries (when adjusted for inflation)

• the loss of the right to collective bargain things like class size, prep time, and supervision

• the loss of due process

• the overuse and misuse of standardized testing

• the diversion of public education funds to charter and voucher schools

• teacher evaluations and school grades based on test scores

• and, beginning in 2020, Governor-appointed majority (8 out of 10) on the state school board as well as a Governor-appointed state superintendent of public instruction.

THIS STATE REALLY HATES PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS

The current make-up of the state government is blatantly disrespectful of public education and public school teachers.

That is why the Governor's teacher-pay task force has no active educator on its panel.

That is why public schools, which educate 90% of Indiana's children, will get a 2% increase in both 2020 and 2021 while charter schools (10.3% and 10.47%), virtual schools (5.25% and 9.14%) and private/parochial school vouchers (9.28% and 5.6%) will get much higher increases. Those percentages certainly show where the state's priorities lie.

That's why Indiana teachers, of all the nation's teachers, have seen the lowest amount of money in teacher raises since 2002.

That's why you can become a teacher in a public high school in Indiana without a degree in education or pedagogical training.

That's why you can become a teacher in a charter school in Indiana without a degree in education or pedagogical training.

That's why Indiana's testing programs, which seem to change yearly, continue to label students, schools, and school districts as failures because they have high populations of children in need. The assumption is that schools must cure the problems caused by poverty, not the legislature, even though out of school factors have a powerful impact on student achievement.

That's why Indiana has singled out teachers as the only group of professionals in the state who need to donate some of their time to local businesses in order to learn how the "real world" works. Every Hoosier teacher is aware that neither the Governor nor members of the legislature are required to donate some of their time to public schools in order to learn how they work.

That's why the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, the person who is responsible for all the public schools in Indiana, will henceforth be a position appointed by the Governor instead of being an elected official. Some states with appointed State Superintendents have elected State Board of Education members. Some states with appointed State Board of Education members have elected State Superintendents. Indiana now has neither. They are all appointed.

HOW ARE YOU SUPPORTING OUR KIDS?

How many of the "Red for Ed" supporters will disregard Fort Wayne Community Schools Superintendent Wendy Robinson's words,

The presidential campaign may receive the most attention, but on this issue, it is not the most important. Take a look at how your state representatives have voted when it comes to funding public education and supporting teachers. You might be surprised at how the people you voted for may say the right things in mailers or commercials or even to your face but vote the other way.

When educators band together for a cause, they can make a difference. Look at the 2012 election for State Superintendent of Public Instruction: A change was made because educators and friends of educators banded together. It can happen again, but only if you carry on what you start on Nov. 19.

Educators, parents, and supporters of public education in Indiana cannot continue to elect the enemies of public education to the state legislature.

If we keep doing what we've always done, we'll keep getting what we've always gotten.

‘Great day’ for teachers

As the rally wrapped up, Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Jennifer McCormick posted the following to her Twitter account:

“Great day today, Indiana. Now … it’s about the tomorrows.”

Alison Schwartz, a senior elementary education major from Ball State University, said of the Red for Ed Rally,

This is important because our teachers are important, and our kids are important. If you can’t fully fund your teachers and your schools and support them, then how are you supporting your kids?

We need to support our kids...at the ballot box in November of 2020.

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Time to Panic? The NAEP Scores Didn't Go Up!

The NAEP scores are in and the "reformers," or as Diane Ravitch has taken to calling them, the "Disrupters" are up in arms because the scores haven't improved. The disrupters promised all of us that charter schools, testing, vouchers, and other "reforms" would solve the low achievement scores, but as we now can see, that didn't happen. Perhaps there's something else that might be affecting the achievement of the students in our classrooms...

When reading through the articles noted below it's important to remember two things.

First, the National Reading Panel did not support heavy phonics instruction despite what "phonics-first" partisans might tell you. It's true, the National Reading Panel Summary said that a phonics-based approach was supported, however, that was different than what was actually in the full National Reading Panel report! (See also I Told You So! The Misinterpretation and Misuse of The National Reading Panel Report by NRP Panel member, Joanne Yatvin and More Smoke and Mirrors: A Critique of the National Reading Panel (NRP) Report on "Fluency" by Stephen Krashen.)

The actual National Reading Panel Report says (p. 2-97),

...it is important to emphasize that systematic phonics instruction should be integrated with other reading instruction to create a balanced reading program. Phonics instruction is never a total reading program. [emphasis added]

So...the NRP recommends something akin to Balanced Literacy...something the "phonics-firsters" decry as "unscientific."

Second, as Steven Singer (Gadfly on the Wall Blog) reminds us, NAEP proficient level isn't the same as grade-level. Diane Ravitch, who served on the NAEP Governing Board for seven years explains it this way...

Proficient is akin to a solid A. In reading, the proportion who were proficient in fourth grade reading rose from 29% in 1992 to 34% in 2011. The proportion proficient in eighth grade also rose from 29% to 34% in those years. In math, the proportion in fourth grade who were proficient rose from 18% to 40% in the past twenty years, an absolutely astonishing improvement. In eighth grade, the proportion proficient in math went from 21% in 1992 to an amazing 35% in 2011.

Basic is akin to a B or C level performance...

In other words, Proficient is the level where the highest-scoring students achieve. Basic is closer to what we think of as "grade-level."

NAEP scores and "the science of reading"

The miniscule changes in reading scores since 2015 are interpreted in “National Reading Emergency” as a reason to embrace “the science of reading,” which is code for heavy phonics instruction. The real “science of reading,” based on a substantial amount of research, consistently shows that intensive phonics instruction produces strong results only on tests in which children pronounce words out of context. It has little or no impact on tests in which children have to understand what they read.

The best predictor of performance on tests in which children have to understand what they read is real reading, especially self-selected reading.

The Big Lie about the “Science of Reading”: NAEP 2019 Edition

Paul Thomas's bullet points below are a good summary of why the NAEP scores do not signal a "national emergency."

With the release of 2019 NAEP data, as we should expect, the same folk are back at over-reacting and misunderstanding standardized reading test data (mostly mainstream media), and dyslexia/phonics advocates are cherry picking evidence to reinforce their ideological advocacy.

All in all, these responses to NAEP data are lazy, and incredibly harmful.

Broadly, responses by the media and advocates have been overly simplistic, and lacking even a modicum of effort to tease out in a scientific way (ironic, eh?) mere correlations from actual causal associations among student demographics, reading policy, reading programs, the fidelity of implementing policy/programs, NAEP testing quality (how valid a proxy is NAEP reading tests for critical reading ability?), etc.

...Only fair things to say about new round of NAEP reading scores:

• The US has never had a period over the last 100 years when we said “reading scores are where they should be.”

• There is always a claim of “reading crisis.”

• This is irrespective of how reading is taught.

• NAEP scores, like all standardized test scores, are mostly (60% +) correlated to out-of-school factors.

• NAEP scores only marginally about student achievement/reading, teacher/teaching quality, reading program effectiveness.

• NAEP scores are very pale proxies of reading

This is a good place (see bullet #4, above) to remind you to read Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success, by David C. Berliner. Unfortunately, little has changed since the report was first published in 2009.

Organizations with the Audacity to Blame Teachers for Poor NAEP Reading Scores!

The low scores are, as they always have been, just another excuse to blame teachers, label schools as "failing", and promote the privatization of public education.

The latest “criticize teachers for not teaching the ‘science’ of reading” can be found in “Schools Should Follow the ‘Science of Reading,’ say National Education Groups” in the Gates funded Education Week.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funds most of the organizations in this report that criticize public schools and teachers for low NAEP scores. Yet they are behind the Common Core State Standards, which appear to be an abysmal failure.

Most individuals and groups never teach children themselves, but they create policies that affect how and what teachers are forced to teach. They have always been about privatizing public education.

Reading instruction is the conduit for corporate school reformers to reach their privatization goals.

NAEP Test Scores Show How Stupid We Are… To Pay Attention to NAEP Test Scores

The US Education Secretary, she who must not be named, is, of course, ignorant about what testing in general means, what "grade-level" means, and what the NAEP scores mean specifically. It's time we replace her with someone who actually knows something about the education of children.

[Note: While the current US Education Secretary is certainly the worst person we've ever had in charge of the nation's K-12 public schools, she's not the only Secretary of Education who displayed ignorance of the field of education. In fact, only three of the eleven Secretaries of Education had training and experience in the field of K-12 education.]

Education Blogger Peter Greene claims that this move is based on a reading comprehension problem the Education Secretary is having, herself.

She says that the NAEP results mean that 2/3 of American students read below grade level. However, Greene points out that she is conflating two different things – grade level proficiency and NAEP proficiency.

Here’s what the NAEP wrote:

“The NAEP Proficient achievement level does not represent grade-level proficiency, but rather competency over challenging subject matter. NAEP Achievement levels are to be used on a trial basis and should be interpreted and used with caution.”

Which kind of begs the question of why we need these scores in the first place.

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Listen to this - 2019 #2

Meaningful quotes...

RED FOR ED IN INDIANA

On November 19th, thousands of teachers across Indiana will converge on the state capital in Indianapolis, or gather in their local communities to draw attention to the lack of state support for public education in Indiana.

Indiana teachers, through the Indiana State Teachers Association, sponsors of the event, have several priorities.

• Increase funding for public schools to increase teacher pay. Currently, Indiana has among the lowest average teacher salaries in the Midwest and has had the lowest increase in teacher pay over the last decade and a half in the nation.

• Don't blame Indiana teachers for student performance on tests. There are too many variables that have an impact on test scores to single out teachers as the only, or even the main cause. 

• Repeal the requirement for teachers to spend their valuable time as business interns in their communities. 

• Stop the move to grade school systems and schools based on what their students do after graduation. Again, there are too many variables in students' lives to assume that schools are the only cause of their choices after they graduate.

Hundreds of school systems throughout the state have canceled classes for the day to allow teachers to participate including the largest district in the state, Fort Wayne Community Schools. When FWCS decided to close, their Superintendent, Wendy Robinson, Indiana's 2018 Superintendent of the Year, wrote a letter to teachers which was published locally. In it, she reminded teachers that a one-day march was not enough to change the culture of education in the state.

From Wendy Robinson, Superintendent of Fort Wayne Community Schools
FWCS to close for Red for Ed Day

The State did not reach this point with public education overnight, and it won’t be fixed in a day. There has been a long, concerted effort to systematically dismantle public education through standardized testing, constantly changing accountability systems and pouring money into private schools. We have been sounding the warnings for years. To change things now will require just as much planning and effort, if not more. True change will only come through legislative action, and that won’t happen if the same people continue to have control of the rule book.

PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

From Alfie Kohn
@alfiekohn

The late James Moffett suggested this slogan for elite, selective schools: "Send us winners and we'll make winners out of them!"

From Heather DuBois Bourenane
Executive Director at Wisconsin Public Education Network

They call them 'innovation schools" because they are an innovative way to remove local control, remove public oversight of public funds, place public property and decision-making under private control, and convince the public that failed old ideas are good and new ideas.

From William J. Mathis
in Beat the dead horse harder

...schools were mandated to solve the test score problem. The trouble was that the policymakers got it backwards. Poverty prevents learning. It is the threshold issue. Without resorting to what we knew, the dead horse was beaten once more with the No Child Left Behind Act. We adopted the Common Core curriculum, punished schools, and fired principals and teachers whose misfortune was being assigned to a school with high concentrations of needy children. It was literally expected that a child from a broken home, hungry and with ADHD would be ready to sit down and learn quadratic equations. Nevertheless, the test-based school accountability approach emerged and still remains the dominant school philosophy. While it is claimed that successful applications exist, the research has not been found that says poverty can be overcome by beating the dead horse. The irony is that the tests themselves show that a test based system is not a successful reform strategy.

From Peter Greene...in answer to Betsy DeVos
in DeVosian NAEP Nonsense

No. For three decades you and many others have used aggressive chicken littling as leverage to remake education in your preferred image. You said, "Let us have our way and NAEP scores will shoot up like daisies in springtime." Do not even pretend to suggest that you have somehow been hammering fruitlessly on the doors of education, wailing your warnings and being ignored. The current status quo in education is yours. You built it and you own it and you don't get to pretend that's not true as a way to avoid accountability for the results.

From Doug Masson
in Some thoughts on Red for Ed, Caleb Mills, and Indiana’s School Policies

The privatization fad isn’t working. Voucher and charter schools do not produce better results than traditional public schools and there is some evidence that they produce worse outcomes. A fractured approach to education cannot produce consistent results. If we’re looking to be responsible with our money, we can’t afford to have education dollars sucked up by self-dealing charter management companies with opaque accounting or vouchers sent to private institutions with books closed to the public. We can’t spend tens of millions of dollars on tests with arbitrary faulty metrics. 

LIFELONG LEARNING

Vlogger John Green talks about learning new things, communication, friendship, innocence, and connections.

From John Green
in still learning

...I still like learning even at my extremely advanced age because new learning can reshape old learning and because learning is a way of seeing connection. And all the little connections across time and space are reminders to me of how deeply connected we all are.

ON TEACHING

From Steven Singer
in Are Teachers Allowed to Think for Themselves?

Teaching may be the only profession where you are required to get an advanced degree including a rigorous internship only to be treated like you have no idea what you’re doing.

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Some Questions for the Ohio House of Representatives

The Ohio House of Representatives has passed a bill that would prevent public school students from being penalized for their religious beliefs in science (and, I presume any other) class. In other words, a student in a geology class could assert that the Earth was 6,000 years old...a student taking astronomy could claim that the stars are simply luminous elements that move above the flat surface of the Earth above the sun, the moon, and the planets...and not be penalized on their research papers or tests.

So...I have some questions...

WOULD A TEACHER HAVE TO ACCEPT ALL RELIGIOUS BELIEFS?

Ohio Snowflakes Seek Safe Space from Science

If one student claims that both male and female humans were created after all the other creatures (Genesis 1:1 through 2:3) and another one claims that male humans were created before plants and animals, and female human beings were created after (Genesis 2:4-2:25) would they both be entitled to a correct grade?

How about a student who claimed that the Universe (and the Earth) was created by the god Ptah, who brought things into existence just by imagining them? Or that the Earth was created by the god Atum, who had sex with his [sic] own feminine energy and brought forth other gods...who then had sex and gave birth to the air, water, humans and everything else?

The Ohio House on Wednesday passed the “Student Religious Liberties Act.” Under the law, students can’t be penalized if their work is scientifically wrong as long as the reasoning is because of their religious beliefs.

Instead, students are graded on substance and relevance.

Every Republican in the House supported the bill. It now moves to the Republican-controlled Senate.

WHAT IS THE POINT OF HAVING ANY SCIENTIFIC CURRICULUM?

Ohio Considers Law Allowing Wrong Answers on Science if Based on Religion

Do we accept answers from students who variously claim that the Universe/Earth is 41,000 years old, 24 trillion years old, or 6,000 years old? If so, what's the point of having any scientific curriculum dealing with the age of the Earth?

The potential for problems is virtually limitless. People believe all sorts of falsehoods based on their religious beliefs — that the earth is flat and is the center of the universe, for example. To sacrifice the truth on the altar of religion is a betrayal of the school’s duty to educate.

SHOULD STUDENTS BE ALLOWED TO IGNORE WHAT THEY DON'T BELIEVE?

Ohio lawmakers clear bill critics say could expand religion in public schools

The following bullets explain parts of the proposed law.

HB 164, known as the Ohio Student Religious Liberties Act of 2019:

• Requires public schools to give students the same access to facilities if they want to meet for religious expression as they’d give secular groups.

• Removes a provision that allows school districts to limit religious expression to lunch periods or other non-instructional times.

• Allows students to engage in religious expression before, during and after school hours to the same extent as a student in secular activities or expression.

• Prohibits schools from restricting a student from engaging in religious expression in completion of homework, artwork and other assignments.

Bullet #1: The federal equal access law already provides for allowing religious groups to meet if secular groups are given the same rights.

Bullets #2, 3, and 4: Students are already allowed to express their own religious beliefs in school based on the First Amendment. This does not mean, however, that students can disrupt the learning process to express their religious beliefs. Additionally, the First Amendment gives students the right to express their religious beliefs in their work, while still being graded based on the requirements of the assignment.

In other words, this is a law looking for a reason. Students are guaranteed by Federal Law and the Constitution the right to express their beliefs and to believe what they want. This does not mean, however, that they should ignore accepted science if they don't believe it.

So, if this bill passes the Senate, teachers will not be able to mark religious beliefs incorrect if they differ from current scientific facts?

On the other hand, Daniels said that if a student submitted biology homework saying the earth is 10,000 years old, as some creationists believe, the teacher cannot dock points.

“Under HB 164, the answer is ‘no,’ as this legislation clearly states the instructor 'shall not penalize or reward a student based on the religious content of a student’s work,” he said.

There is no need for this. A student who is assigned a paper on the structure of the Solar System does not give up their right to believe in a flat Earth, or a Geocentric universe, or that the Earth was created on the back of a giant turtle, simply by writing that science accepts the Earth revolves around the Sun, which revolves around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. There is no educationally sound reason to insist that students not be held accountable for scientific facts as are currently accepted. Why even teach science (which is, I suspect, one of the reasons for this bill in the first place -- an anti-science attitude)?

WHICH RELIGIONS ARE THE RIGHT ONES?

There is a reason that the founders fought to keep Church and State separate. Once we allow religion to interfere with the public school curriculum we would have to deal with questions like

• "whose religion is accepted as accurate for tests?"

• "who decides which religions are allowed as sources of content?"

• "which religions are to be defined as cults or unacceptable? In other words, which religions are not really religions?"

Keeping religion out of public school doesn't deny students the right to their own beliefs...it guarantees it.

Students can believe what they want, despite what they are taught, but schools, or the adults in them, cannot decide which beliefs are acceptable and which are not. Public schools have a responsibility to teach secular science as we know it. Parents who don't want their children exposed to reality should home school them, or send them to a religious school -- at their own expense -- which presents the religious beliefs they agree with.

The Ohio Senate would be wise to reject this bill.

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Extinction is the rule, Survival is the exception.

Carl Sagan: November 9, 1934 - December 20, 1996

For Carl Sagan Day...exercise your critical thinking skills with this collection of quotes.

ON CRITICAL THINKING

Broca's Brain Book, 1986

Both Barnum and H. L. Mencken are said to have made the depressing observation that no one ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public. The remark has worldwide application. But the lack is not in intelligence, which is in plentiful supply; rather, the scarce commodity is systematic training in critical thinking.

Carl Sagan's Last Interview Television, 1996

Science is more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking; a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility.

If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then, we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes ambling along.

It's a thing that Jefferson lay great stress on. It wasn't enough, he said, to enshrine some rights in a constitution or a bill of rights. The people had to be educated and they had to practice their skepticism and their education. Otherwise we don't run the government. The government runs us.

ON THE EARTH'S CLIMATE

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space Book, 1997

Those who are skeptical about carbon dioxide greenhouse warming might profitably note the massive greenhouse effect on Venus. No one proposes that Venus's greenhouse effect derives from imprudent Venusians who burned too much coal, drove fuel-inefficient autos, and cut down their forests. My point is different. The climatological history of our planetary neighbor, an otherwise Earthlike planet on which the surface became hot enough to melt tin or lead, is worth considering — especially by those who say that the increasing greenhouse effect on Earth will be self-correcting, that we don't really have to worry about it, or (you can see this in the publications of some groups that call themselves conservative) that the greenhouse effect is a "hoax".

Cosmos Television series, 1980. Book (revised), 2013

Our intelligence and our technology have given us the power to affect the climate. How will we use this power? Are we willing to tolerate ignorance and complacency in matters that affect the entire human family? Do we value short-term advantages above the welfare of the Earth? Or will we think on longer time scales, with concern for our children and our grandchildren, to understand and protect the complex life-support systems of our planet? The Earth is a tiny and fragile world. It needs to be cherished.

Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium Book, 1997

If we keep on with business as usual, the Earth will be warmed more every year; drought and floods will be endemic; many more cities, provinces, and whole nations will be submerged beneath the waves — unless heroic worldwide engineering countermeasures are taken. In the longer run, still more dire consequences may follow, including the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, and the inundation of almost all the coastal cities on the planet.

Wonder And Skepticism Article, 1995

In fact, the thickness of the Earth's atmosphere, compared with the size of the Earth, is in about the same ratio as the thickness of a coat of shellac on a schoolroom globe is to the diameter of the globe. That's the air that nurtures us and almost all other life on Earth, that protects us from deadly ultraviolet light from the sun, that through the greenhouse effect brings the surface temperature above the freezing point. (Without the greenhouse effect, the entire Earth would plunge below the freezing point of water and we'd all be dead.) Now that atmosphere, so thin and fragile, is under assault by our technology. We are pumping all kinds of stuff into it. You know about the concern that chlorofluorocarbons are depleting the ozone layer; and that carbon dioxide and methane and other greenhouse gases are producing global warming, a steady trend amidst fluctuations produced by volcanic eruptions and other sources. Who knows what other challenges we are posing to this vulnerable layer of air that we haven't been wise enough to foresee?

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF (TEACHING AND) LEARNING SCIENCE

Why We Need To Understand Science Article, 1990

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark Book, 1997

We've arranged a global civilization in which the most crucial elements — transportation, communications, and all other industries; agriculture, medicine, education, entertainment, protecting the environment; and even the key democratic institution of voting, profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.

ON HUMAN SURVIVAL

Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium Book, 1997

The Earth is an anomaly. In all the Solar System, it is, so far as we know, the only inhabited planet. We humans are one amongst millions of separate species who live in a world burgeoning, overflowing with life. And yet, most species that ever were are no more. After flourishing for 180 million years, the dinosaurs were extinguished. Every last one. There are none left. No species is guaranteed its tenure on this planet. And we’ve been here for only about a million years, we, the first species that has devised means for its self-destruction. We are rare and precious because we are alive, because we can think as well as we can. We are privileged to influence and perhaps control our future. I believe we have an obligation to fight for life on Earth—not just for ourselves, but for all those, humans and others, who came before us, and to whom we are beholden, and for all those who, if we are wise enough, will come after. There is no cause more urgent, no dedication more fitting than to protect the future of our species.

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God Book, 2006

Because it is clear from the fossil record that almost every species that has ever existed is extinct; extinction is the rule, survival is the exception.

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