I've gotten very cynical about this. The movement is now and always has been about putting public schools out of business, mostly to reduce the tax burden on people who don't use the public schools for one reason or another. And to the extent the "business" of education can't be shut down, the revenue streams diverted into private, for-profit concessions.

Either way, and it really doesn't matter which way, it's not about educating kids - the private-profit, public-subsidy model of Charters has pretty well demonstrated that they do no better at educating kids. What it is really about in both cases is undermining education labor - reducing labor costs. They will not stop until they break the teaching profession...that's what this is really about.

Just to be clear: the NCLB and other federal initiatives have always made the false assumption that student achievement is 100% in the control of teachers, even as evidence mounts that this is at most only partially true. That cuts both ways of course - it also undermines the argument that paying teachers more to get higher quality teachers will result in dramatically better student outcomes.

Public Schools of Yore really didn't educate/serve the entire population..they were selective enrollment outfits (using attrition instead of admission) who cherry-picked as well, and it seems to me that most of the effort of the 'refomers' is to undo the gains in access made in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

@1 agreed. I teach, and I work hard to do right by my students. What if we were all treated like professionals and allowed the freedom and support to do our jobs to the best of our abilities all the time.

However, not everyone wants to destroy public schools and replace them with for-profit charter schools, some companies, like Pearson just want to profit from making all of us test increasingly while raising the stakes of these tests and then selling test prep back to schools. Everyone wins! (Except kids, families, teachers, and, ultimately, our society)

50 years ago it seems like our society was squarely focused on making our kids' live better than our own. Now we seem to be squarely focused on profiting from our kids and their future be damned.

There's far too much wrong with the US educational system to sum up in a short comment, but I will say this--having a rockin' school band or drumline means absolutely nothing about the quality of your school's academics. The people in music education pimping the "music ed improves math scores" base all this on bad statistics (I've read the studies and crunched the data myself, and I am both a trained research scientist and hold a master's in music).

This will always be tough issue. Even foes of the public schools want kids to get a good education. There's a strong temptation to try for the mythical silver bullet--which No Child Left Behind is just the latest of many attempts.

The only thing that is demonstrated to work is an engaged teaching staff that tailors it's approach to the particular kids at that school. All of these one-size fits all approaches are doomed to fail. Kids in poor neighborhoods with little or no pre-school preparation need an entirely different school than kids from wealthier areas who have been have had education enrichment literally from birth. Both can succeed, but not if forced into the same proscriptive mold.

@4 A masters in music? What does that even mean if music has nothing to do with academics.

It sounds kind of arrogant to hear a teacher say she knows the meaning of life. Would have been a better cartoon with, like, "teach them to balance a checkbook" or something boring like that.

It means I have studied it to a level far beyond the casual listener--I succeeded in school despite the music programs.

A "good band" is about a good predictor of overall academic success as a "good sports program." Duke is able to do both relatively well, Gonzaga not so much. It's even shadier in K12.

This is not to say that studying music should not be done--it's just not a good measure of overall quality.

Yet another issue that has been too long delayed (buried).

I remember seeing a high school kid on the bus here in Kent reading a "science" text book that looked like something from 3rd grade (pictures of water evaporating from crops...etc...).

WA state has too many freeloaders disguised as professionals. People dont' feel obligated to do their jobs...unless they get paid extra.

And maybe they're right. In a world of Billion Dollar Selfies, fair work is not fairly paid. Salaries need to go up...but also, responsibility.

I'm taking this as a (hopeful) sign of NCLB finally failing and being driven away, not of the schools themselves failing.

@6: They said "master's in music" meaning that they are now owned by somebody who has a career in the music field.

No, for a real trip, you'd need to talk to my sister, who has her MDiv. That one should come with an automatic reverb machine.

I'd be all for wearing the NCLB-failure badge with pride, as NCLB is in itself a failure (does failing at a failure make it a success, in the same vein as two negatives make a positive?) if it weren't for the pesky little problem of losing control of funding. I'm just having a really difficult time understanding how taking away federal dollars/control of spending is supposed to help a 'failing' school district. "YOU'RE A POOR FAILURE, SO WE'RE GONNA HELP YOU... BE A POORER FAILURE."

@3 - as I said, profit where they cannot completely shut down the enterprise.

Education is a very labor-intensive undertaking (we in higher ed are coming under a great deal of pressure as well) and there is a fat revenue stream to tap. But public schools are break-even affairs, with not a lot of fat profit to tap. The one thing you can attack is labor costs. The object of labelling schools as 'failing' is to induce churn - shut down older schools (with staff that have seniority) and create new ones (with new, substantially cheaper) staff. This is the goal of programs such as "teach for America".

Whether or not the testing industry is a parasite that seeks to kill it's host or not, the pressure for testing comes directly from people who are interested in nothing less than breaking the labor model. That's why the emphasis is on teacher accountability , not on students and families of origin, which by the way, are vastly, scientifically proven, better indicia of student achievement (and yes, @4 is correct about the predictive quality of arts education).

50 years ago - the golden age of public education - the 1960s - were also rife with public school failures. Back then everyone employed the Rod Paige model: get rid of the low-achieving students. Public Education works a lot like the healthcare system: 20% of your students drive 90% of your costs (ok, hyperbole, but you get the idea). That's what selective enrolment (the charter model and private schools) is all about. It was also easier to accomplish this cheaply before the 70s because you had a captive labor pool: educated women (no other career paths).

The really amazing part is this: when you normalize for the student populations actually being educated, the evidence is pretty strong that public schools are better than they have ever been! That is: the improvement in students they churn out over what goes in is bigger than it's ever been.

But economically, public education is a case study in adverse selection and public goods (the tragedy of the commons).

NB - I'm a former PS HS Chemistry teacher...though it's been almost two decades since I escaped "classroom management".

@14, pretending that there is an evil motivation behind all charters or Teach for America undermines your argument. Just as much as the argument that teachers are against standardized tests because teachers' unions don't want to be held accountable. It's useless because it's baseless.

Lots of the people (maybe most) who are thankful for their local charter school as an alternative to the local public school which had been unsatisfactory for generations, are poor and middle class and vote Democratic.

I wouldn't choose a charter school for my son (unless he really wanted to go) because they tend to double-down on the standard, regimented, traditional paradigm. But right now, charters offer poor and middle-class parents something in education that only the rich have traditionally had: choice.

And, as a devout liberal, I'm pro-choice. If you think that poor people don't need to have a choice as to where they send their kids to school, you should address that, instead of simply demonizing everyone who is trying to create alternatives in ways you disagree with.

What drives me nuts about NCLB is that it's so focused on reading and math, and meanwhile the states are allowed to do fucking stupid shit like teaching students about creationism and "happy" slaves in the antebellum South. Could we start by requiring public schools not to teach kids pure fantasy?

One of the many outlandish propositions of NCLB was that 100 percent of students at all schools in the United States would be fully proficient in reading and math

What does this even mean? What does it mean to be "proficient"? Eighth grade reading level? Kids graduating with proficiency in pre-algebra? I'd consider those to be reasonable goals given the wide variation in basic skills and intelligence of children in a country of 330 million people. But what does "proficiency" mean to NCLB?

@16 - there is ample evidence that TFA is all about getting inexpensive (and somewhat untrained) labor in cheaply, specifically for people who have no intention of making it a long term career. Attrition rates among teachers are already phenomenally high and this inside secret of school board HRs and superintendents has long been a method/coping strategy for keeping budgets down.

The people who are fleeing to selective enrolment are making good choices for themselves individually (and their kids presumably), but that doesn't mean that is a good choice in the aggregate. This is what I mean by tragedy of the commons and public goods.

Selective enrolment is all about getting away from "those people" and you are very very wrong if you think that desire is purely class based...that the "poor and middle class...[who] vote Democratic" aren't interested in getting their kids away from the disruptive and academically lagging "bottom". The point isn't about whether they deserve it or not; it's about the mechanics of adverse selection.

Testing operates on schools in aggregate - you keep peeling off the stronger, cheaper and easier to educate students, the schools will keep failing. Charters and cherry picking are a guarantee that kids at the very bottom with the greatest needs will forever remain in the very worst schools. Those parents won't have "choice" because those students won't be accepted or will be dropped (generally after the Charter tuition deadline when the tax dollars have been secured) and returned to the "failing" public schools.

You could prove me wrong by showing me a locality where Charters are forced to take and keep all students who choose to attend, and at least match public school performance. But there aren't any.

#16 I don't think anyone claims that public ed cannot be improved, its how you go about it. Yes, let's have more choice and diversity in education options. That can be done within the public education framework. Instead the emphasis is on 'charter' schools and 'privatizing' public education and breaking teacher unions.

Charter schools, btw, were originally never meant to be alternatives or competition to public education but instead were originally intended to be "authorized by school districts and run by teachers. Central office administrators were to be pushed aside, but charter schools would still operate within collective bargaining arrangements negotiated between districts and unions." see http://educationnext.org/no-al-shanker-d… These schools were to be experimental in nature, and positive results would then shared and adopted in the larger public school system. They were meant to complement and improve the larger public school system, with none of the anti-teacher union features now prominent in the charter school movement. Instead, shameless opportunists hijacked the idea and turned it on its head and now, along with vouchers, use charter schools as way to kill teacher unions and dismantle public education, and make a buck in the process.

@17 - The one thing I don't object to about the standards movement is the focus on reading and math. Learning is fundamentally pyrimidal. Unless you can read proficiently and do math proficiently, you can't move on to the next level. You can't learn "science" until you have mastered a bit of math, and you can't learn history and philosophy until you can read. It hobbles you. Yes, the other garbage (creationism, revisionist history) is a time-waste, but it's relatively small.

When students show up in the 7th grade reading at a 3rd grade level, you have to catch them up before you can get them to the 8th grade level. If you are an amazing teacher and only get them to the 6th grade reading level - 3 whole levels!!! - you are a failure because they are not reading at the 7th grade level when they leave your classroom.

NCLB in simple terms from the school perspective:

A- Dont teach, TRAIN students to pass standardized tests. They wont learn anything, but your school will remain funded.

B- Boot out students who dont make the cut to alt schools rather than 'ugh' working harder to reach them. Because they put your school and all its employees jobs at risk.

NCLB in simple terms from the politicians/republicans/know nothings perspectives:

If a school is failing, threaten to cut their already limited funding and if that doesnt work shut them down, squeezing more kids into other underfunded schools! BRILLIANT!

____

Can we all just call NCLB what it was from the beginning...an attempt to privatize public schooling in America by defunding public schools and pressing for shitty, segregated, unregulated charter schools ala the American South (Where NCLB originated before it was called NCLB)?

@16 - As a good liberal, I'm sure you also understand the argument you are making in favor of Charters is the same as the GOP approach to health care and against the pooled risk of the ACA and single payer. These things are, from an economic/systems perspective, all 'public goods'.

@21 - "Can we all just call NCLB what it was from the beginning...an attempt to privatize public schooling in America by defunding public schools and pressing for shitty, segregated, unregulated charter schools"

I was trying to be diplomatic but yes, of course, you are correct...

ala the American South (Where NCLB originated before it was called NCLB)?

I taught in a state which already had state-based 'standards of learning' tests and yes, NCLB is the same thing, writ large. What I've never figured out is Teddy Kennedy's support for it. All I can think is he was counting on the failure of the method but the establishment of a national federal-level commitment which could then be used politically to expand federal involvement and funding. Shrub got the better of Kennedy on that play.

Oh, and for anyone who thinks these schemes are motivational (for teachers): yes, they are; anyone capable of getting into another career is strongly motivated to do so, as quickly as possible...so there goes your best and brightest.

TEACH THE CHILDREN TO READ by 2ND GRADE.
spend the money. spend the money. spend the money.

@20,

I don't agree with you that the states being allowed to politicize curricula is a small problem. For one, it creates a situation where wealthy states/localities are teaching students real history and real science while poor states/localities are churning out dumb-dumbs ala Louie Gohmert and Clive Bundy. In red states, educational standards are getting demonstrably worse, and the feds are doing fuck-all about it. Meanwhile, the rest of the civilized world is laughing at us.

@25 - I agree that the curriculum hijinks - the Texas School Book standards in particular - are a real problem and no, not "small" in any absolute sense, but in a relative sense, they're less pressing.

I'm on the east coast (in a red state) and taught in a mid-sized/small system; the former head of HR, Assistant Superintendent and later Superintendent is a close personal friend (post my employment there). I've been up close and personal with what's happening in DC (during the reign of the Charter movement and Rhee's TFA anti-union tenure). I can't speak about Seattle/KC in an informed way. The reality here is that the Charter movement hasn't delivered magic (or much really), has been susceptible to fraud and that all the anti-teacher shifts haven't changed the public schools much either. The MD and VA schools - right next door - are dramatically better, often with lower per-pupil expenditures. What really underlies this isn't incompetent teachers, but the populations they serve.

Right now the huge change in DC is the gentrification going on - there's a massive demographic shift, which finally has families from stronger socio-economic (and more importantly: educational) backgrounds moving in. Parents who have kids in the schools and are more invested. If they stay and keep their kids in, I believe the numbers will improve and achievement will go up for all students - including the "at risk" kids.

This study was referenced in some podcast(?) or article I recently came across (and now can't find) - maybe Hidden Brain on NPR? - and makes the case that peer effect is important and helpful for students at the bottom in particular, if not so great for the middle. This pretty well explains why it's good for 'school choicers' individually to pull their kids out, but bad overall.

Here is the hidden brain piece

@1 agree. Billionaires get tax breaks for investing in charter schools that returns their investment to them in 7 years. That's how politicians destroy public schools. The common core tests pass with no parent involvement and no federal politician accountable?

On the other hand, Everyday Math is a failure.

Those things sound great and all, but have thee any anecdotes about how great Garfield students are doing in STEM fields?

We spent the day today examining the 7 effects of poverty on learning for our students. That was fine until the end when we were asked to commit to one thing we would do to help fix those problems. The unspoken assumption was that we are obligated to take the blame, and to fix these effects of poverty by improving our apparently inadequate teaching strategies. We were each given a 3 X 5 card on which we were to document our one takeaway from the day. What follows is my takeaway. I tried getting it all on one 3 X 5 card, but the problem turns out to be a bit bigger than that.
* * * * * * * * * *
Yes, teachers can continue to sharpen instructional strategies. But, the significant gaps through which students are falling do not exist as a result of bad curriculum or poor teaching strategies. Therefore, they cannot be closed by good curriculum or better teaching strategies.
The greatest negative factor in modern education is the expectation put on teachers to remedy all of society’s ills. (Thank you NCLB.) This philosophy makes the under-achieving student an enemy - a threat- to the teacher’s well being (and the principal’s, and the superintendent’s, etc.”). The fear/threat mentality passed from Washington DC, to governors, to OSPI’s, to superintendents, to principles, to teachers . . . “You better, or else!” is supposed to stop with the teachers? It will not.
Teachers are supposed to “build relationships” with their students. Nothing is more contrary to the development of relationships between students and teachers, the one key requisite for effective education, than knowing the student is a threat to the security and significance of the teacher. If that student does not pass the State Assessment, the teacher’s (and principal’s, etc.), job is on the line.
This is the one psychological fly in the educational soup. The, “You better, or else!” will be passed to the students. The teacher must clean house (kick the kid out) to survive. The principal must clean house (fire the teacher) to survive. The superintendent must clean house (fire the principal) to survive.
This is the reason for the national movement against standardized assessments. This is the reason for the Washington State successful effort to NOT include student assessments in teacher evaluations. The best thing to happen to education in Washington will prove to be the refusal to bend to this “You better, or else you will loose your waiver option!” fear/threat strategy coming from DC. The “Race to the Top,” ironically, does not go up.
The solution? Very simple: get honest. Tell teachers and principals they are neither the cause nor the final solution to student failure. Tell educators they have a very important role, and they have a profound opportunity to lift some, maybe even most, children out of the grasp of poverty. But “NO child left behind?” carries with it a sickening and discouraging expectation to do the impossible.
We can make this shift here at (name your school). Imagine the effect on a teaching staff who hears this type of realistic (as opposed to idealistic) rhetoric from their leadership. “Hey, you guys are doing great. Thanks for trying to find ways to reach more kids. But you will not reach them all. You will loose some. And I will not hold you responsible when that happens.”
And then follow with, “What we will do is look for ways to provide, at a building level, for some of those other barriers to learning that are keeping some kids from engaging your wonderful teaching.”
And then be brave enough to say, “And the issues we cannot touch at building level, we will pass to district administration. And we will refuse to allow them to hand it back to us with the excuse of, “poor teaching,” or “poor leadership in that building,” or, “there’s nothing we can do about that.”
It will be their obligation to pass to those above them, and then to those above them, the problems that were created at levels far above the classroom. These problems can be fixed, but they must be addressed at their points or origin instead of asking the 3rd period Social Studies teacher undo the mess those with the real power have made.
The problems we face in the classroom have very little to do with what we do in the classroom. Let’s accept this and relax, enjoy our students, and do what we can. Then we can smile at the “butt-head” kid who is giving us a hard time because his father is in prison, and we are free to give him a hug and forgive him before he even asks to be forgiven, because he will no longer be an enemy who must be eliminated.
It is my bet that under this mentality we would see more positive engagement with difficult students, and ultimately more successful students exiting our doors ready for success in high school and in life.

ps. And, probably more of them might consider careers in teaching so they could pass some hope to the next generation of disconnected children who will be coming through the pipeline if those with the real ability to change education in America fail to do so.

pps. Hope I don’t get fired for saying all this.

Love being here at (name your school). Dave Wilson

To LJM who wrote comment #16, your "argument" here, if it could be called that, reminds me of the comments made by Lisa Macfarlane, major sellout and shill for The Privatizers---the people who want to gradually phase out public education and turn over our schools---and our tax dollars---to private companies and individuals. (In fact, most of your comments employ Lisa Macfarlane's "logic"; are you sure you're not her?)

Macfarlane---who is the state head of a truly vile group called "Democrats" for Education Reform, whose only "Democratic" members, last I checked, includes Cory Booker, Kevin "I Like 'Em Young" Johnson, and a self-obsessed little miscreant billionaire congressman from Boulder, Colorado named Jared Polis who purchased his seat in Congress by setting a record for campaign spending, and once, during a meeting with education historian, Diane Ravitch, literally picked up a book she had given to everyone in the room, and literally threw it back at Ravitch, nearly hitting her in the face and calling her "EVIL!". (Ravitch, a 75 year old grandmother, is the former Undersecretary of Education under President George H.W. Bush, and a leading voice against the privatization of our public schools.)

Lisa Macfarlane is so confident and secure in her very well paid position that no one is allowed to post any comments on her blog or homepage in response to her---increasingly unhinged and ultra-defensive---pro-corporate editorials.

The so-called "Democrats" for Education Reform is a sleazy, underhanded operation, started by a handful of billionaires who "made" their money through legalized gambling and speculation called "Hedge Funds."

"Democrats" for Education Reform is headed by a true sociopath named Whitney Tilson, whose hatred of anything "public" or anything "union" almost explodes off the screen. Tilson, another arrogant, headstrong, bossy hedge fund billionaire, developed "D"FER as a tactic to deliberately deceive people and con them into believing that the effort to "reform" education, was truly a "bipartisan" one---it's not even close. (For instance, in September 2008, there was a vote at a meeting of Washington State Democrats. The motion to oppose charter schools was defeated 500 to 0. That's Five Hundred in favor of killing charter "schools" and ZERO against the idea. I think that's known as an overwhelming consensus.

Tilson and his billionaire buddies see every public school in America---but more so, the tax dollars we pay to support them---as a "Target Market", just like any other object they decide to attack, like a creature of prey.

Since they've already succeeded in destroying so many other industries, big and small, and privatizing as much of the government in all other sectors as possible--hiring private companies at significantly higher expense than government workers---they've now decided to first "Nationalize" education with things like Bush's "No Child Left Behind", Obama's "Race To The Top" and now, the ultimate, "Profit Generator", COMMON CORE!

Once ALL public education is the same---coast to coast, in all fifty states and DC---then they can "sell" to one market. Pearson is the key company here---a favorite with Wall Street, the value of its stock has more than quadrupled since the advent of NCLB. It also now owns the SATs and has revised them to be "Common Core Compatible".

So, oh what a bonanza is ahead for Wall Street once they Privatize ALL public education; now, they can't do it overnight, so they start slowly, piece by piece, beginning always, with Step Number One: Charter "Schools". Step Two: Increased High Stakes Test Scores...

The Ultimate "Dream" for Education Privatizers (A.K.A. "Education Reformers") is a 100% Privatized "Education" System---except for the dollars used to support them; they'll remain completely and totally "public".

Unless we average taxpaying citizens, renters, home owners, parents, grandparents and non-parents get informed, and organized, to fight this revolting, cynical naked power play for our schools, NOW!--- be prepared for the day when free, universal public education for all American kids is just a memory from the distant past.

Fight back now, with everything we have, and support courageous educators like Jesse Hagopian and others who truly want what is best for our children and are our partners in this struggle to protect, preserve and defend public schools for all.