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PELTO: Malloy to Join Anti-Teacher, Anti-Union Forces at Capitol Rally

by: ctblogger

Thu Feb 16, 2012 at 11:55:28 AM EST

Unbelievable cross post from Jon Pelto's Wait What?

Malloy's decision to speak at a rally with anti-teacher, anti-union advocates, once again, raises the question of why he seeking confrontation instead of consensus. Malloy failed to tell the public that Connecticut already has one of the longest teacher probation periods in the nation (4 years) and the major teacher evaluation reforms that became law in 2010 will finally require school administrators to do their job and remove teachers who are not up to the job.

Instead, the Governor continues to demonize those who devote their careers to educating our children.

Now we learn that on March 14th, 2012 Governor Dannel Malloy will join radical "education reformer" Michelle Rhee and the CT Parent's Union (a new Connecticut group that is directly connected to controversial conservative RiShawn Biddle) in an effort to pressure legislators to adopt Malloy's education proposal.

The CT Parents Union, who is hosting the rally at the State Capitol, is pushing for the widespread use of school vouchers and an end to teacher tenure in Connecticut. Although clearly engaged in lobbying, CT Parents Union has yet to file with the State Ethics Commission nor have they filed an IRS form 990 revealing where they are getting their funds or how those funds are being spent.

Earlier this year the CT Parent's Union hosted a press conference in Ohio with other education reformers including the Ohio Parent's Union, the Texas Parent's Union to push for an end to "Zip Code" education which prevents students from moving across town lines to attend their school of choice.

Here in Connecticut, the CT Parents Union first became known as the entity that paid the legal fees for the grandmother who illegally enrolled her grandchildren in the Stratford School system.

CT Parents Union lists RiShawn Biddle as their lead consultant.

Biddle is the editor of an "education reform" blog called Dropout Nation and a regular contributor to The American Spectator, the right-wing magazine that played a leading role in the efforts to impeach President Clinton.

Just a few weeks ago, the CT Parent's Union lead consultant was the keynote speaker at the Central Minnesota Tea Party's "Excellence in Education" Forum

Biddle message is that the two major American teacher unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have preserved the policies that have "perpetuated the low quality of instruction in the nation's school."

ctblogger :: PELTO: Malloy to Join Anti-Teacher, Anti-Union Forces at Capitol Rally

Last year, Biddle authored a piece in The American Spectator entitled The New Civil Rights Leaders in which he observed that "old-school civil rights activists are fading into the history books - making way for a new generation." In his article, Biddle specifically highlights Steve Perry who he calls "the blunt-speaking social worker who has garnered national acclaim for his work as founder of Capital Prep Magnet School in Hartford," and Gwen Samuel, the president of CT Parent's Union, who he calls "one of the foremost leaders of the Parent Power movement."

Biddle's does a good job (albeit unintentionally) revealing the interconnection among anti-teacher forces.

While Biddle fails to point out in his American Spectator article that he is the lead consultant for Samuel's CT Parent Union he says "the level of fear among teachers' union leaders over Samuel's efforts - and that of fellow Parent Power groups such as Parent Revolution (which passed the nation's first Parent Trigger law) became clear last month when education magazine Dropout Nation (Biddle also fails to note that Dropout Nation is his blog) revealed a presentation given by the AFT at one of its conferences that showed how its Connecticut affiliate worked unsuccessfully to kibosh the law (it did manage to water it down). The widespread outcry forced AFT President Randi Weingarten to issue two apologies"

Meanwhile, as the Hartford Courant wrote yesterday, in addition to Biddle's efforts, the extremist "education reformer" Michelle Rhee will be joining Malloy at the March 14th rally.

Rhee told the Courant's Rick Green that a "'Collaborative Approach' In Education Can Dilute True Reform." Green notes that "during her three-year run in D.C., Rhee raised test scores, closed schools, fired principals and teachers, and tied compensation to student performance."

Green also adds that Rhee "remains embroiled in controversy over test score gains under her leadership, even as StudentsFirst, the national group she founded two years ago, plays an increasingly prominent role around the country."

When addressing the teacher tenure issue in last week's State of the State address Governor Malloy claimed that "In today's system basically the only thing you have to do is show up for four years. Do that, and tenure is yours."

Now Malloy will be joining some of the most anti-teacher, anti-union activists in the nation. It would be a sad commentary about seeking consensus on education reform if he actually attends the rally. Perhaps he could send his Lt. Governor instead.

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PELTO: Malloy to Join Anti-Teacher, Anti-Union Forces at Capitol Rally | 7 comments

I'm glad that I was never an enthusiastic supporter of Dan Malloy (4.00 / 1)

My primary suspicions about him are coming true.

I think it's a slap at the core principles of the Democratic Party when Democratic politicians embrace the Republican's ideology on "education reform" which really means defunding public education and join in on the Reich wing's teacher and union bashing. This is the kind of behavior that turns off the Democratic base.

by: Larkspur @ Thu Feb 16, 2012 at 18:54:25 PM UTC

by: you @ soon

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Buyer's remorse (4.00 / 1)

Anybody still selling that "Dan is a Progressive" line these days? All those concerns for which we were vilified are coming to pass, as we knew they would, and not one of the Malloy Mafia is coming around to defend what he's doing and explain how it's all very "progressive" but we're too stupid to see it.

by: chele @ Fri Feb 17, 2012 at 13:44:39 PM UTC

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No Buyer's Remorse Here (0.00 / 0)

I think the only thing that bothers me is that so called "progressives" are spending more time defending the status quo and attacking the Governor than presenting their own solutions. Governor Malloy believes that good teachers can make a difference in the lives of their students and his reform suggestions will make sure we get good teachers in the classrooms. Teachers that are good and effective have nothing to fear. Teachers that are not doing well might benefit from a little nudge into another line of work that they will be better and happier in.

The sad part is that in this education reform debate the teachers unions are engaging in scorched earth tactics. When I attended the Connecticut Forum panel on the issue a year ago teachers union representatives were handing out fake programs with text that attacked the pro-reform panelists. Instead of helping their cause I think it hurt their credibility. Posts like the one way above only reinforce that perception.

Amazingly one of the best examples of how both sides can make positive change and work together is in our own backyard.

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by: Matt Zagaja @ Fri Feb 17, 2012 at 17:15:55 PM UTC

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Why aren't bad parents demonized by Malloy along with bad teachers? (0.00 / 0)

My mother was a teacher and she used to tell me that when the parents care about their kids learning their kids learn but when they don't care, their kids are less likely to learn no matter how good the teacher is.

What Malloy was doing was following the Republican playbook of blaming all the public education woes on the teachers and the teachers' union. There are a myriad of reasons why public education has problems and that charter schools are not the cure all for making public education better. The Pro-charter schools groups are fronts for corporations wanting to feed off of taxpayer money and their agenda is to get rid of public education so that they have the monopoly on education. They don't give a damn about the kids.

by: Larkspur @ Fri Feb 17, 2012 at 18:52:47 PM UTC

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This is MY business (3.00 / 1)

Matt, vouchers are an attempt to destroy the promise of public education. When you hear the word "voucher" replace it with "destroy public funding for education". It's really simple.

If you want to change education and make it work, you can start by ending the system that thinks they are building a car on an assembly line.

A child in fifth grade can be any age within a 14 month window. So, if we take two children, one at the lowest age and one at the highest, and present them with the same material and instruction, which child is going to get an education and which is not?

The entire school system has to be revamped to eliminate "grades" (K-12) and say simply "You put your kid in school at age 5 and they progress until they learn what they need to either go to a trade school, go to a college, or meet the minimum standard for graduation (or reach the age of majority and drop out).

That means that you redesign classes to teach materials that are needed for the next class. So in math you take the current K-1 materials and teach them until a student knows them, when they do they move to the 2-3 materials. You do the same with all the other subjects. If a kid is in the math class covering 4-5 and the science class covering 2-3 and the English class covering 6-7 so be it!

You do this with the same "funding" you presently use. You bring in tools that measure competency (diagnostics, not tests) to see where a student is having issues, and you address those issues. You add in that a student must spend part of their day also "teaching" lower level students (students who are having diagnostic problems at learning levels below them) because the best way we learn is using materials we have learned for practical purposes - like teaching it to others.

But Michelle Rhee and her ilk are strictly believers in making the education of kids nothing more than another corporate profit center. They don't give a hoot for the public good. Never have and never will. And when a Democratic Governor links arms with these people it should be enough to make your stomach turn; just like drinking sour milk.

Study after study shows that the rates at which kids "fail" are almost the same at Charter verses Public Schools verses "open" privates (think RCC Schools). Even when you get to privates that are there to make money, the rates from those schools that pick and choose the kids that they want (cherry pick) are not all that much higher than those that do not cherry-pick.

The system is broken. There is no doubt about that. But it is NOT the teachers. It is the whole system.

For the record, the students that do the best in school aren't always the "oldest in the class". What has been found after many studies is that the kids that did the best in their education were the ones who had parents who were most active in working with their kids educationally and made their education a priority. These findings fit with the work my partner and I have been going with over 3000 students in the last 10 years. 10% of any group of kids are self-motivating on their education. The next group that does well are those that have active and involved parents, which is about 20% of any group of kids. So, you have 30% of the kids who will, in any group, do better than the other 70% by a measurable factor.

Disclaimer: I am the CEO of EduCAD Learning Solutions, Inc. We have a patented product in development for the last 10 years that we have been working on with about 300 kids in grades 5-9 every year. The product(s) should be released in 2012. The product(s) are based on doing diagnostics throughout the learning cycle and using those diagnostics (both through adaptive computer systems and reports for coaches [a coach can be a teacher/parent/tutor - but a human interventionist is a major part of our system]) to direct the students development so that they have the base materials they need before they move on to the next item to learn that builds on that base.

The question is not what you are, we already determined that, we are now negotiating price.
electrealdemocrats.com Online since 3/07 -- TimetogoJoe.com Online s

by: Met00 @ Mon Feb 20, 2012 at 12:09:00 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

13 Questions About Education Reform By Diane Ravitch (4.00 / 2)

Do politicians know anything at all about schools and education? Anything?

as first posted here: Nieman Watchdog

(Some links added)

By Diane Ravitch

gardendr@gmail.com

1. Both Republican candidates and President Obama are enamored of charter schools—that is, schools that are privately managed and deregulated. Are you aware that studies consistently show that charter schools don’t get better results than regular public schools? Are you aware that studies show that, like any deregulated sector, some charter schools get high test scores, many more get low scores, but most are no different from regular public schools? Do you recognize the danger in handing public schools and public monies over to private entities with weak oversight? Didn’t we learn some lessons from the stock collapse of 2008 about the risk of deregulation?

2. Both Republican candidates and President Obama are enamored of merit pay for teachers based on test scores. Are you aware that merit pay has been tried in the schools again and again since the 1920s and it has never worked? Are you aware of the exhaustive study of merit pay in the Nashville schools, conducted by the National Center for Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt, which found that a bonus of $15,000 per teacher for higher test scores made no difference?

3. Are you aware that Milwaukee has had vouchers for low-income students since 1990, and now state scores in Wisconsin show that low-income students in voucher schools get no better test scores than low-income students in the Milwaukee public schools? Are you aware that the federal test (the National Assessment of Educational Progress) shows that—after 21 years of vouchers in Milwaukee—black students in the Milwaukee public schools score on par with black students in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana?

4. Does it concern you that cyber charters and virtual academies make millions for their sponsors yet get terrible results for their students?

5. Are you concerned that charters will skim off the best-performing students and weaken our nation’s public education system?

6. Are you aware that there is a large body of research by testing experts warning that it is wrong to judge teacher quality by student test scores? Are you aware that these measures are considered inaccurate and unstable, that a teacher may be labeled effective one year, then ineffective the next one? Are you aware that these measures may be strongly influenced by the composition of a teacher’s classroom, over which she or he has no control? Do you think there is a long line of excellent teachers waiting to replace those who are (in many cases, wrongly) fired?

7. Although elected officials like to complain about our standing on international tests, did you know that students in the United States have never done well on those tests? Did you know that when the first international test was given in the mid-1960s, the United States came in 12th out of 12? Did you know that over the past half-century, our students have typically scored no better than average and often in the bottom quartile on international tests? Have you ever wondered how our nation developed the world’s most successful economy when we scored so poorly over the decades on those tests?

8. Did you know that American schools where less than 10% of the students were poor scored above those of Finland, Japan and Korea in the last international assessment? Did you know that American schools where 25% of the students were poor scored the same as the international leaders Finland, Japan and Korea? Did you know that the U.S. is #1 among advanced nations in child poverty? Did you know that more than 20% of our children live in poverty and that this is far greater than in the nations to which we compare ourselves?

9. Did you know that family income is the single most reliable predictor of student test scores? Did you know that every testing program—the SAT, the ACT, the NAEP, state tests and international tests—shows the same tight correlation between family income and test scores? Affluence helps—children in affluent homes have educated parents, more books in the home, more vocabulary spoken around them, better medical care, more access to travel and libraries, more economic security—as compared to students who live in poverty, who are more likely to have poor medical care, poor nutrition, uneducated parents, more instability in their lives. Do you think these things matter?

10. Are you concerned that closing schools in low-income neighborhoods will further weaken fragile communities?

11. Are you worried that annual firings of teachers will cause demoralization and loss of prestige for teachers? Any ideas about who will replace those fired because they taught too many low-scoring students?

12. Why is it that politicians don’t pay attention to research and studies?

13. Do you know of any high-performing nation in the world that got that way by privatizing public schools, closing those with low test scores, and firing teachers? The answer: none.

by: Jon Kantrowitz @ Thu Feb 16, 2012 at 21:11:44 PM UTC

by: you @ soon

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Do you know (0.00 / 0)

that JonK (like myself) makes his living in the education field?

When you have two people who make their livings in this field say that Michelle Rhee are her ilk are 100% wrong (and neither of us works at a public school as a teacher) that maybe Michelle Rhee and her ilk are actually 100% wrong.

Michelle Rhee and her ilk are attempting to turn education into a corporate profit center with your tax dollars. There are billions being spent, and they want to scoop up those billions of education tax dollars for profit first and foremost rather than education of the kids first and foremost.

And before someone says "you want to make your corporate money in this field". We have two products. The first is actually going to be offered FREE and the second has a maximum price (if purchased by a parent or school) of $50/yr/student, but if purchased by a school, based on the percentage of students at the school in the federal lunch program, it can drop to as low as $10/yr/student. Consider that against the cost of a single standardized test (well over the $10 cost and in many cases over the $50 cost). Now put the cost into "Starbucks dollars" and it's less than one Vente Mocha Frappe per month.

The question is not what you are, we already determined that, we are now negotiating price.
electrealdemocrats.com Online since 3/07 -- TimetogoJoe.com Online s

by: Met00 @ Mon Feb 20, 2012 at 12:22:56 PM UTC

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PELTO: Malloy to Join Anti-Teacher, Anti-Union Forces at Capitol Rally | 7 comments

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