Ed Notes Online: YATS: Yet Another Test Scandal Brewing in NYCDOE and New State Ed Dept. Plus disparaging opt-out

Sunday, August 7, 2016

YATS: Yet Another Test Scandal Brewing in NYCDOE and New State Ed Dept. Plus disparaging opt-out

Following the Chancellor Farina's press conference, a journalist wrote me, "Twilight zone. ...Collective self-delusion with the kids used as political chess pieces." It appears we are living through Groundhog's Day, over and over again. As the well-known saying goes, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."... Leonie Haimson, https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2016/08/evidence-grows-we-are-entering-new-era.html

Leonie has been on the case so there is not much to add here except that the UFT wants to live in the test bubble too. And then there is the charter bullshit of claiming their scores are better -- sure - they mark their own stuff, pick their students and do who knows what else?

And despite the attacks on the opt-out movement by NY State Ed, Farina and DOE and the UFT, the movement still grew, even in NYC. I read a quote from NYSAPE's Lisa Rudley about how they disparage the slight rise in opt out while bragging about the same slight "rise" in test scores, if even you can call that a rise considering the shenanigans.

Read the NYSAPE press release: http://www.nysape.org/nysape-pr-score-analysis.html

And Arthur's take: NYC Educator NY Test Scores---Chalkbeat Chugs the Cherry Kool Aid

Here are some of Leonie's posts on the issue:

Monday, August 1, 2016

Despite NYSED & Gates-funded efforts, Opt out grows across the state; impossible to claim growth in achievement

Thursday, August 4, 2016

Evidence grows we are entering a new era of mass delusion and test score inflation- including cut score manipulation

Update 8/5/16: Be sure to also check out today's blog post on this issue, including links to Daily News and NY Post articles and today's NYSAPE press release.

And I'm reposting her entire piece here - with more to come.

Friday, August 5, 2016: Update on growing evidence of state test score inflation

See articles in the NY Daily News and NY Post about the drops in the raw scores on the NYS exams needed for proficiency.

NYSAPE just released its analysis which is somewhat clearer than mine here: Link to Press Release

Diane Ravitch posted her succinct summary here and concludes, “These are serious charges. It is now the responsibility of Commissioner Elia, the Board of Regents, and the State Education Department to demonstrate the validity and integrity of the tests.”

In a comment on my blog, Andrea Gabor points out that comparing the test results last year to this is like comparing rotten apples to rotten oranges.

Meanwhile, Chalkbeat attributes the (highly dubious) gains at least in part to the expansion of charter schools and the Common Core – no doubt Bill Gates’ favorite theory as well. (Be sure to read the comment about Success charters below the piece.)

Then check out the significant difference between the NYSED discussion in 2015 and 2016 of equating raw scores to different proficiency levels:

http://www.p12.nysed.gov/irs/pressRelease/2015800/documents/EquatingExplained2015.pdf

Q3: Why did the raw scores change?

A:The raw scores that map to each of the scale score cut scores change almost on a yearly basis. See the "Raw Score to Scale Score Conversion Charts" at http://www.p12.nysed.gov/irs/ela-math. These charts are available back to 2006.

Q4: How did the raw scores change in 2015?

A:On the 2015 tests, year-to-year raw score change is for Level 3 were small and varied by grade.

Raw scores went down slightly on 5 tests (indicating slightly harder tests in 2015 compared to 2014 for Grade 6 ELA and Grades 4, 5, 6, and 7 Math) and went slightly up on 5 tests (indicating slightly

easier tests in 2015 compared to 2014 for Grades 3, 5, and 7 ELA and Grades 3 and 8 math). Raw scores stayed the same on two tests (Grades 4 and 8 ELA)

http://www.p12.nysed.gov/irs/pressRelease/20160729/documents/EquatingExplained2016.pdf

Q3: Why did the raw scores change?

A:The raw scores that map to each of the scale score cut scores often change with each subsequent test administration. See the "Raw Score to Scale Score Conversion Charts" at http://www.p12.nysed.gov/irs/ela-math

The number of raw points necessary to achieve each performance level change due to several factors. These factors include equating and changes in number of raw points available on each test. For instance, the total number raw scores for ELA and Mathematics went down this year in all grades due to the shortening of the tests (i.e., removal of one reading passage and items).

That was it. No Q4 this year because unlike past years, they couldn’t say in five tests the raw scores went up, five down etc. Instead they would have to admit that in 11 out of 12 exams, not only the total raw scores but the PERCENT of raw score points out of the total possible points fell for proficiency.

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"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Ed Notes Extended

Sunday, August 7, 2016

YATS: Yet Another Test Scandal Brewing in NYCDOE and New State Ed Dept. Plus disparaging opt-out

And I'm reposting her entire piece here - with more to come.

Friday, August 5, 2016: Update on growing evidence of state test score inflation

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