Monday, December 6, 2010

Indiana's Failing Schools?

Terre Haute Tribune-Star assistant editor and columnist Stephanie Salter follows up her Bashing teachers in the name of education reform from last week with an even more revealing story this week, Have you heard Indiana’s schools are failing? It’s a lie. She describes the "modus operandi" of Governor and 2012 presidential aspirant, Mitch Daniels, and his state education superintendent sidekick, Tony Bennett, as: "Pick out the flaws and weak points — or at least those that appear flawed and weak without real context — and offer them, repeatedly, as representative of a public education system Bennett calls a 'mess' and compares to the BP oil spill." Salter continues to make her point that Daniels and Bennett are way off the mark in their plan to change schools in Indiana.

Columnist Thomas Steiger looks at the high stakes tests tied to performance pay part of the Daniels-Bennett plan for destroying Indiana's public schools in Are teachers not part of learning equation? Steiger writes of value-added models favored by many current education "reformers:"

There is no observable teacher characteristic that consistently correlates with student outcomes. It doesn't matter the quality of the school a teacher attended, it doesn't matter how well they scored on any teacher licensure exam, their own SATs, how experienced they are, whether they have a master's degree, nothing. The idea that good teachers are born, not made, is the inevitable conclusion.

A new plan has been proposed by a teacher-legislator in Indiana to "require mandatory homework assignments for early elementary school students and measure parental involvement in its completion." Under the bill whose "language has yet to be written," "teachers would assign 'meaningful' homework every school day to first-, second-, and third-graders and would require a parent, guardian or other significant adult to sign off that the homework was completed with adult supervision." Schools would be required to report homework completion on a state web site. They would also be required to "recruit community volunteers to act as 'mature homework partners' to assist students who routinely fail to complete their homework."

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Wednesday, December 8, 2010

I think that public education is a fundamental institution in our democracy. Free public education—open to all, free to all, controlled by democratic means—is a central promise of our democratic society. Its purposes are civic, not just utilitarian; it exists to strengthen our democracy and our society. I believe it is wrong to privatize it. We must continue to have schools that are the center of their communities, where children are students, not products, and parents are citizens, not customers.

Diane Ravitch            

Geminids Next Week

Towards the beginning of next week, the Geminid meteor shower will begin. Peaking early Tuesday morning (December 14), the Geminids are the most intense meteor shower of the year. They're also unique in that the "parent" of Geminid meteors is "a weird rocky object named 3200 Phaethon" instead of the usual comet parent.

The best viewing comes, well, when it isn't cloudy, but also in a moonless sky, usually in the early morning. Next Monday night-Tuesday morning, it appears the moon will set here in west, central Indiana around 1 A.M. (EST), so meteor watching may come earlier than the often 4-5 A.M. best viewing period for meteor showers. The Geminids also emanate from nearly straight up, causing Space.com's Geoff Gaherty to comment, "This circumpolar pattern for the radiant means that meteors may be seen all night long."

And of course, viewing a meteor shower is dependent on the weather. Like many of you, we've kept a fire in the wood burner and stayed inside as much as possible through a blast of winter weather the last few days. The forecast for early next week looks a bit better temperature-wise, but still partly cloudy.

"GEM" in the Stellarium screenshot above marks the approximate radiant from which the Geminids should emanate in our area. Coincidentally, the free, open source Stellarium planetarium software was updated to version 0.10.6 this week. Stellarium shows "a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope...Just set your coordinates and go."

• Science@NASA: Geminid Meteor Shower Defies Explanation by Dr. Tony Phillips
• Space.com: Best Meteor Shower of 2010 Arrives in December by Geoff Gaherty

Space.com's Joe Rao tells of other things now visible in the night sky in Holiday Lights: Forgotten Winter Constellations Now Visible at Night.

Rhee Returns to Center Stage

Michelle Rhee pushed her name back into the news Monday by announcing her new organization, Students First, that will promote her education "reform" priorities.

• The Christian Science Monitor: Teachers' union target Michelle Rhee to raise $1 billion for education reform by Amanda Paulson
• The New York Times: A Former Schools Chief Shapes Her Comeback by Trip Gabriel
• The Washington Post: Former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee starts student advocacy group by Bill Turque and Nick Anderson

Odds 'n' Ends

The Diane Ravitch quote at the top of today's posting was tucked away near the end of her We Need Public Schools and Democratic Governance posting on she and Deborah Meier's Bridging Differences blog.

The results from the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) test are in: US falls to average in education ranking. Walt Gardner wisely counsels that we Put PISA in Perspective on his Reality Check blog today.

Anne Geiger has written an excellent primer on market-based school reforms in Words matter: Children are human beings, not market products.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Indiana Education "Reform" Plan

Indiana's governor and superintendent of public instruction rolled out their plan to remake Indiana schools this week. There was little new in the proposals that included market-oriented "reform' favorites such as the elimination of tenure, teacher pay tied to student test scores, and more charter schools. Vouchers to allow students to use some state funds for private schools were also included in the proposals.

• Louisville Courier-Journal: Governor Daniels will offer private school voucher plan by Lesley Stedman Weidenbener
• Terre Haute Tribune-Star: Schools chief apologizes to "good teachers" by Sue Loughlin
• Terre Haute Tribune-Star: You've heard from me — now, listen to the teachers by Stephanie Salter

Have a great weekend!