It is interesting that the Louisiana media has failed to report on a sizable last minute outside contribution to Louisiana's BESE election campaign by a political group based in New York. The American Independent Newspaper today carries a very well researched article about the contribution of New York Mayor Bloomberg's PAC to the Jindal/Grigsby PAC just a few days before the October primary election. Why was this important development not reported in the Louisiana news media? If the public were to view the Governor's BESE takeover effort as part of a plan by a group of rich New York business guys who are involved in privatization of schools, there may be a public backlash against their candidates. On the other hand if Jindal can sell his BESE takeover effort as a good government move to reduce the influence of unions and school boards who just want to maintain the status quo, the public is more likely to support his hand picked BESE candidates. Unfortunately this revelation did not come in time to cause a public backlash against the defeat of BESE members Keith Guice and Dale Bayard in the Primary.
Heaven knows Bloomberg does not need any more money, but there are recent revelations about his connections with media tycoon Rupert Murdock whose companies have developed computer assisted instructional programs that are being marketed to public and private schools.
The outside connections to Jindal, Grigsby, School Charter Groups and pro-voucher groups with the TFA and New York privatizers are just too numerous and well documented to ignore. One-by-one TFA newcomers have been appointed to the Louisiana Department of Education and BESE staff positions while highly qualified local educators have been passed over. John White, an unproven TFA alumnus is waiting in the wings for his appointment to the top position in Louisiana education while Jindal and his friends build their super majority on BESE. Rolfe McCollister, owner of the Baton Rouge Business Report whose daughter recently worked for one of the charter management organizations is actively involved in this takeover PAC. Chas Roemer's sister who works for the charter schools has been advised that she cannot appear before BESE, yet Chas has been allowed to vote on critical charter takeover issues.
Testing companies are expecting more lucrative no-bid contracts. Many operators of the private and parochial schools across Louisiana are licking their chops at the prospect of a financial windfall of public funds if the Governor is successful in expanding his voucher programs to private schools outside the New Orleans area. A group called the Black Alliance for School Choice is already drumming up support for vouchers and charters in the Black community. Only later will such parents find out that these will mostly benefit the affluent who can already afford a private education for their children. Freedom of choice of schools was outlawed by the courts years ago because it did not reduce segregation. Yet these voucher programs will surely produce an excluded group of high poverty students. This is what we can expect from the takeover of BESE.
As I pointed out in my post of April 3, 2011, "It's not about the children anymore." It's about the adults and their plans to use public school funds for their own benefit.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
Jindal Closer to Goal
The results of the primary election for BESE have brought Governoer Jindal very close to his goal of taking complete control of BESE. The defeat of District 5 and District 7 incumbents, Keith Guice and Dale Bayard make it more likely that Jindal will get his 8 vote super majority to pick the next State Superintendent. Three BESE races, Districts 2, 6 and 8 have yet be decided in the November general election. In District 3, Lottie Beebie, an educator from St. Martin Parish defeated the Governor's choice, incumbent Glenny Lee Bouquet.
I am very disappointed in the loss of Keith Guice and Dale Bayard from the Board because they were solid representatives for sound education policy. They had been targeted for defeat by the Governor and his allies because they refused to support some reforms that they believed were more destructive than helpful to our schools.
Despite huge campaign expenditures by pro-Jindal incumbent Chas Roemer, he has been forced into a runoff with long time educator Donald Songy. Independent minded Louella Givens is in a runoff with TFA administrator, Kira Jones in District 2.
Carolyn Hill, a social worker is in a runoff in District 8 with former school board member Jim Guillory.
Look for more information on these runoffs in future post on this blog.
I am very disappointed in the loss of Keith Guice and Dale Bayard from the Board because they were solid representatives for sound education policy. They had been targeted for defeat by the Governor and his allies because they refused to support some reforms that they believed were more destructive than helpful to our schools.
Despite huge campaign expenditures by pro-Jindal incumbent Chas Roemer, he has been forced into a runoff with long time educator Donald Songy. Independent minded Louella Givens is in a runoff with TFA administrator, Kira Jones in District 2.
Carolyn Hill, a social worker is in a runoff in District 8 with former school board member Jim Guillory.
Look for more information on these runoffs in future post on this blog.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Negative Campaigning
Even the Jindal/big business endorsed candidate for BESE District 7 is objecting to the outrageous attacks (Click to view the Advocate story) by the Jindal/Grigsby PAC against BESE incumbent Dale Bayard. The Governor's friends want to make sure that he and big business have total control over education policy and they don't care how they do it. They are so determined to remove all dissenting voices to the big business takeover of public education that their negative campaigning has gotten outrageous. Their chosen replacement to Bayard will be expected to do their bidding without question. Just as was done in the case of Tammie McDaniel who had the nerve to occasionally disagree with (non-educator) State Superintendent Pastorek on some critical issues.
The big money pushing the BESE takeover will not tolerate dissenting voices especially if they come from professional educators. In this "brave new world" of education reform anyone who is a professional educator is automatically considered to be an obstacle to "reform". On the other hand, anyone who comes from a business background or graduated from an Ivy League college with a non-education degree is considered far superior to education graduates for staffing our schools. No matter that the TFA recruits generally only intend to do this bit of public service for two or less years; they are considered experts with only 6 weeks training. No matter that many of the Broad Foundation graduates of the school administrators' academy have no understanding of classroom issues, they are considered superior administrators to those who have toiled in the classroom for years. Their only criteria is: Did the teacher raise student test scores? This is like having an accountant telling the doctors how do do surgery. If the Governor and his friends are successful, public education in Louisiana will be run by amateurs who believe they have all the answers without ever having worked in the classroom.
I am urging all educators and education support personnel to get out and vote for true public education advocates to BESE seats this Saturday. Ask your friends and relatives to also support your recommendations for BESE. This is the only way we can combat the influence of big money over our profession. Please ask all voters to support the condidates that have been recommended by the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education. They are the following:
Update: For BESE the Coalition has endorsed: District 1 - Sharon Hewitt; District 2 - Louella Givens; District 3 - Lottie Beebe; District 5 - Keith Guice; District 6 - Donald Songy; District 7 - Dale Bayard; and dual endorsements in District 8 - Jim Guillory and Domoine Rutledge. Also the Coalition supports District 4 - Walter Lee - who drew no opposition. These candidates fully support public education and the real transformation of Louisiana public schools.
The big money pushing the BESE takeover will not tolerate dissenting voices especially if they come from professional educators. In this "brave new world" of education reform anyone who is a professional educator is automatically considered to be an obstacle to "reform". On the other hand, anyone who comes from a business background or graduated from an Ivy League college with a non-education degree is considered far superior to education graduates for staffing our schools. No matter that the TFA recruits generally only intend to do this bit of public service for two or less years; they are considered experts with only 6 weeks training. No matter that many of the Broad Foundation graduates of the school administrators' academy have no understanding of classroom issues, they are considered superior administrators to those who have toiled in the classroom for years. Their only criteria is: Did the teacher raise student test scores? This is like having an accountant telling the doctors how do do surgery. If the Governor and his friends are successful, public education in Louisiana will be run by amateurs who believe they have all the answers without ever having worked in the classroom.
I am urging all educators and education support personnel to get out and vote for true public education advocates to BESE seats this Saturday. Ask your friends and relatives to also support your recommendations for BESE. This is the only way we can combat the influence of big money over our profession. Please ask all voters to support the condidates that have been recommended by the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education. They are the following:
Update: For BESE the Coalition has endorsed: District 1 - Sharon Hewitt; District 2 - Louella Givens; District 3 - Lottie Beebe; District 5 - Keith Guice; District 6 - Donald Songy; District 7 - Dale Bayard; and dual endorsements in District 8 - Jim Guillory and Domoine Rutledge. Also the Coalition supports District 4 - Walter Lee - who drew no opposition. These candidates fully support public education and the real transformation of Louisiana public schools.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Reform May Not be Progress
Governor Jindal wants to make sure that BESE members elected this fall will continue to implement his education reform agenda and appoint his hand-picked State Superintendent. That's why he and business groups who support him are pouring money into BESE campaigns. The Governor intends to totally control BESE.
Previous posts on this blog have described Jindal's education reform agenda. See the September 1, post. What is objected to by most educators is that these so called reforms are totally unproven and may actually do more harm than good to Louisiana education. For example, the new teacher evaluation plan now being developed for Louisiana will use a value added formula measuring student academic growth to determine 50% of the teacher's performance rating. The Governor intends to use these evaluations to reward successful teachers and possibly fire teachers whose students don't progress as mandated. But there is a basic flaw in this plan. It is clear that the most critical need for effective teachers is in schools serving high poverty/high risk students. (For example, teaching positions in alternative schools) Yet no matter who their teachers are, these are the students that consistently show the least growth on Louisiana's testing system. So how is the state going to attract the most effective teachers to high poverty schools when teachers know that accepting such a position could result in a bad evaluation, possibly a lower salary, and possibly dismissal?
Another idea that looks good on paper, but may fail in practice is the addition of online virtual schools. Louisiana now has two privately run virtual schools that are expected to grow rapidly. Proponents say that such schools may work for students who have not been successful in a traditional school environment. Supporters say the virtual school allows for more individual attention and may provide a learning program tailored to a student's unique learning style. What the proponents don't emphasize is that for some grades, the pupil teacher ratio may be as high as 50 to 1. Also, these programs require a parent or other adult in the student's home to serve as a "coach" so that day to day learning can be carefully monitored. For a thorough analysis of what could go wrong, take a look at the experience with virtual schools in Colorado. According to the article linked here, we find that Colorado is experiencing serious problems with some of the same companies that are contracted to run the virtual schools in Louisiana. A large number of such students are dropping out and an unfair financial and teaching burden is being placed on the traditional public schools when such students transfer back to them in the middle of the school year.
Jindal also wants to continue expanding charter schools and voucher programs in Louisiana. That's despite the statistics that show that all direct takeover charter schools that have been added outside of New Orleans have shown a decline in student performance. The New Orleans takeover schools are the second lowest performers in the state. Also the average performance of the students receiving vouchers to attend private schools is also lower than when these students attended public schools. Reform apparently does not require improved performance.
I encourage educators to actively support the candidates endorsed by the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education. See these endorsements in my Sept 29 post. These are the candidates that stand for effective education reform.
Previous posts on this blog have described Jindal's education reform agenda. See the September 1, post. What is objected to by most educators is that these so called reforms are totally unproven and may actually do more harm than good to Louisiana education. For example, the new teacher evaluation plan now being developed for Louisiana will use a value added formula measuring student academic growth to determine 50% of the teacher's performance rating. The Governor intends to use these evaluations to reward successful teachers and possibly fire teachers whose students don't progress as mandated. But there is a basic flaw in this plan. It is clear that the most critical need for effective teachers is in schools serving high poverty/high risk students. (For example, teaching positions in alternative schools) Yet no matter who their teachers are, these are the students that consistently show the least growth on Louisiana's testing system. So how is the state going to attract the most effective teachers to high poverty schools when teachers know that accepting such a position could result in a bad evaluation, possibly a lower salary, and possibly dismissal?
Another idea that looks good on paper, but may fail in practice is the addition of online virtual schools. Louisiana now has two privately run virtual schools that are expected to grow rapidly. Proponents say that such schools may work for students who have not been successful in a traditional school environment. Supporters say the virtual school allows for more individual attention and may provide a learning program tailored to a student's unique learning style. What the proponents don't emphasize is that for some grades, the pupil teacher ratio may be as high as 50 to 1. Also, these programs require a parent or other adult in the student's home to serve as a "coach" so that day to day learning can be carefully monitored. For a thorough analysis of what could go wrong, take a look at the experience with virtual schools in Colorado. According to the article linked here, we find that Colorado is experiencing serious problems with some of the same companies that are contracted to run the virtual schools in Louisiana. A large number of such students are dropping out and an unfair financial and teaching burden is being placed on the traditional public schools when such students transfer back to them in the middle of the school year.
Jindal also wants to continue expanding charter schools and voucher programs in Louisiana. That's despite the statistics that show that all direct takeover charter schools that have been added outside of New Orleans have shown a decline in student performance. The New Orleans takeover schools are the second lowest performers in the state. Also the average performance of the students receiving vouchers to attend private schools is also lower than when these students attended public schools. Reform apparently does not require improved performance.
I encourage educators to actively support the candidates endorsed by the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education. See these endorsements in my Sept 29 post. These are the candidates that stand for effective education reform.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
School Grades: Chicken or Egg?
Which comes first; an excellent school program or a motivated and academically engaged student body? When the school grades are announced this week by the Department of Education, many parents will be led to believe that their children's teachers are incompetent or lazy or both. They will have one more reason to just blame schools for poor student performance instead of doing their jobs of motivating their children and insisting on students doing their school work. That's because the current education reform craze producing the new school grades has incorrectly decreed that schools and teachers are totally responsible for the academic success of all students who happen to be enrolled.
Added 10/5/11: The school letter grades were released today and there are absolutely no surprises. Out of all the alternative schools in the state (30), all but two were assigned an F. Out of 68 Recovery District schools receiving letter grades, 87% received either a D or an F. Out of all the student selective magnet schools in the state, all but three received an A. Does this mean that all the teachers and administrators in our alternative schools are incompetent and that all teachers in magnet schools are highly effective? Will we get similar results when we apply the new teacher grading system? This is nuts!
All of my analysis of school performance shows that the qualities of student motivation and engagement in school are at least as important as the hard work of teachers in producing school success. The school reformers would probably be shocked to learn that a school could have top notch administrators, excellent teachers and a great academic program and still be rated as a "D" or "F" school by the new grading system. That's because the new school grades are completely dependent upon test data and attendance or graduation rate of students. If many students in a particular school miss a large number of school days, if they refuse to study and do homework, if they fail to get necessary sleep and proper nutrition, and are careless and skip some of the questions on their LEAP test, the school will likely be labeled as bad or failing. How is it that a school rather than the parents can be held responsible for the factors mentioned above?
If public education is to improve, the general public and our education policy makers must understand that it's not just the effectiveness of the school and it's not just the quality and motivation of the students but a complex mix of factors that determine student success.
In a school system like the Zachary Community Schools, we have both factors clicking to produce a truly excellent school system. Administrators and teachers are hard working and demanding of excellence in both their own performance and their student's performance. At the same time, children come to school prepared to work hard and learn. Parents won't let a student miss school unnecessarily and regularly use the Internet and teacher communications to check assignments and insist that students do homework. The school culture has become one of excellence and academic achievement. Everyone, whether educator or student is expected to do his/her part.
The Zachary schools will get A's and B's on the new grading system. The teachers and administrators in Zachary deserve to take their bows and accept credit for a job well done, but they also know that parents and students deserve their share of the credit. Unfortunately many educators in neighboring Baton Rouge will be unfairly demoralized by a grading system that puts the entire burden on their shoulders instead of promoting a unified effort by parents, students, and educators. In those schools, the new school grading system will do more harm than good. Because of this destructive impact on many schools staffed by dedicated professionals, the school grading system itself deserves an F.
Added 10/5/11: The school letter grades were released today and there are absolutely no surprises. Out of all the alternative schools in the state (30), all but two were assigned an F. Out of 68 Recovery District schools receiving letter grades, 87% received either a D or an F. Out of all the student selective magnet schools in the state, all but three received an A. Does this mean that all the teachers and administrators in our alternative schools are incompetent and that all teachers in magnet schools are highly effective? Will we get similar results when we apply the new teacher grading system? This is nuts!
All of my analysis of school performance shows that the qualities of student motivation and engagement in school are at least as important as the hard work of teachers in producing school success. The school reformers would probably be shocked to learn that a school could have top notch administrators, excellent teachers and a great academic program and still be rated as a "D" or "F" school by the new grading system. That's because the new school grades are completely dependent upon test data and attendance or graduation rate of students. If many students in a particular school miss a large number of school days, if they refuse to study and do homework, if they fail to get necessary sleep and proper nutrition, and are careless and skip some of the questions on their LEAP test, the school will likely be labeled as bad or failing. How is it that a school rather than the parents can be held responsible for the factors mentioned above?
If public education is to improve, the general public and our education policy makers must understand that it's not just the effectiveness of the school and it's not just the quality and motivation of the students but a complex mix of factors that determine student success.
In a school system like the Zachary Community Schools, we have both factors clicking to produce a truly excellent school system. Administrators and teachers are hard working and demanding of excellence in both their own performance and their student's performance. At the same time, children come to school prepared to work hard and learn. Parents won't let a student miss school unnecessarily and regularly use the Internet and teacher communications to check assignments and insist that students do homework. The school culture has become one of excellence and academic achievement. Everyone, whether educator or student is expected to do his/her part.
The Zachary schools will get A's and B's on the new grading system. The teachers and administrators in Zachary deserve to take their bows and accept credit for a job well done, but they also know that parents and students deserve their share of the credit. Unfortunately many educators in neighboring Baton Rouge will be unfairly demoralized by a grading system that puts the entire burden on their shoulders instead of promoting a unified effort by parents, students, and educators. In those schools, the new school grading system will do more harm than good. Because of this destructive impact on many schools staffed by dedicated professionals, the school grading system itself deserves an F.
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