Teacher's blog shares passion, heartbreak

Normally sharing a well-written blog by a passionate teacher is a joyful task. Today's discovery comes with an overlay of sorrow.

I met Vivian Connell,  a former Providence High teacher with strong views on the fate of the profession,  at the Emerging Issues Forum in Raleigh in mid-February. I enjoyed her way with words,  and we exchanged emails afterward.

Connell

If you read Jane Stancill's recent story,  you know that about a month later Connell was diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's syndrome.  She's a few years younger than me, facing a relentless and fatal illness.

I was tempted to feel sorry for her. Then I read her blog, "finALS."

"Well, hello there, Death! I was not expecting you, yet, here you are,"  she writes of getting her March 12 diagnosis. She moves quickly on to her plans for the years she has left:  "I want to join my fiery, righteously indignant, kick-ass colleagues in education blogging as we defend the essential civic institution of public education against an onslaught, a wrong-minded and dangerous take-over by private interests that threatens the nature of American democracy."

Not much hand-wringing there.  I get the sense she'd much rather face a good argument than a dose of pity  --  and someone who describes Diane Ravitch as her hero is likely to spark plenty of good arguments.  You can read more about her path from teacher to lawyer back to teacher,  as well as get her take on all that lies ahead for her.  That include not just her illness,  but her plans to take her students to the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington.

Lieberman

And while I'm sharing good writing,  Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has posted a piece about International Baccalaureate life by East Meck student journalist Hannah Lieberman,  titled  "I think, therefore IB."   CMS spokeswoman Stacy Sneed said as far as she knows,  it's the first piece of student reporting posted on the district's site.  I think it's a great idea and hope to see more student work. 

Dr. Seuss as education agitator

The U.S. Department of Education probably thought it would start a nice book chat when it celebrated Read Across America day by asking on its Facebook page what people are reading.  Instead,  it got a barrage of posts from teachers and parents protesting the Common Core standards and/or Education Secretary Arne Duncan's test-driven approach to education reform.

"I'm reading Reign of Error,  Mercedes K. Schneider's blog,  EduShyster,  Jersey Jazzman and everything else I can get my hands on that informs me as a parent to help my children escape from the pseudo-science of the corporate reform movement's nonsense curriculum," read a typical comment.

Diane Ravitch's "Reign of Error:  The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools" was cited by many of the 184 people who had posted as of Tuesday afternoon.  

Some got more creative.   “Race To The Top of Gates Mountain" and  “Harry Plotter:  Similarities Between the U.S. Department of Education and The Ministry of Magic,"  replied Jacob Rosecrants,  a former high school teacher.

Michael Bohr, whose Facebook page identifies him as a "contemporary insurgent,"  wrote a poem,  apparently inspired by the Dr. Seuss theme that's part of the official Read Across America event:

I am busy reading all the writings on the wall
Of which I doubt you've read any of that at all.
For if you did, I'm sure that you would probably see

That the Common Core is as bad, as bad as it can be. 

Thanks to Vivian Connell,  a former Providence High teacher who's now a lawyer working with Public Schools First NC,  for the heads-up on this entertaining thread.

State's big issue: Teachers and money

Next month policymakers and opinion-shapers from around the country will gather at N.C. State University to discuss  "Teachers and the Great Economic Debate."

Each year since 1986,  the university has convened a forum on  "big issues that affect North Carolina's growth and prosperity."  Recent topics have included health care, manufacturing and  "investing in Generation Z."

This year the Institute for Emerging Issues is zeroing in on teachers:  How they're treated,  how they're paid and how well they inspire learning,  around the globe and here at home.

Ron Clark and students

State leaders such as former Gov. James Hunt,  who co-chairs the institute,  and state Board of Education member John Tate will share platforms with such national education celebrities as Ron Clark,  whose founding of Atlanta's Ron Clark Academy was turned into a TV movie,  and Diane Ravitch,  one of the most prolific and controversial voices in the education scene.  Gov. Pat McCrory and Phil Berger,  president pro tem of the state senate,  have been invited to speak,  and a panel of legislators will discuss next steps for North Carolina.

The forum is Feb. 10 and 11. Registration costs $400  ($275 for higher education, nonprofit and government representatives),  which puts it outside the reach of many teachers.  The Belk Foundation is addressing that by footing the bill for 150 teachers from around the state.  There's also an option to watch online;  staffers say last year's forum drew about 1,000 in-person participants and 1,200 online viewers.

Testing makes strange bedfellows

Diane Ravitch and Heath Morrison form an unlikely mutual admiration society.

Ravitch

Ravitch, an author and advocate who was in town Wednesday for lectures at UNC Charlotte, is wary of leaders trained by the Broad Superintendents Academy.  She views philanthropist Eli Broad as part of the  "billionaire boys club"  pushing a reform agenda that's demoralizing teachers, weakening public schools and handing over public education to corporate interests.

Gorman

Peter Gorman,  a Broad graduate and former superintendent of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools,  is a case study in the kind of things Ravitch doesn't like.  He rolled out lots of new tests,  planning to use them to rate teacher effectiveness.  He closed several high-poverty schools,  citing low performance and the pressure of the recession. Then he resigned to take a job with the new education division of  Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Ravitch contends that such testing and technology companies are the only real beneficiaries of Broad-style reform.

Morrison

Ravitch says she met Morrison,  also a Broad graduate,  when she spoke at an American Association of School Administrators meeting about a year and a half ago.  Morrison,  who was superintendent in Reno, Nev., approached her afterward to tell her  "we're not all like that."

"He pretty much said,  'Watch me,' "  Ravitch said Wednesday.

After Morrison was hired to lead Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools,  he posted a recommended reading list.  Ravitch's  "The Death and Life of the Great American School System"  was featured prominently. But what persuaded Ravitch that Morrison was really different was a December article in the Observer reporting his strong criticism of North Carolina's testing program.  In her education blog,  Ravitch hailed  "wonderful news from Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina,"  and said that because of his comments,  she would  "happily add Heath Morrison to the honor roll as a champion of American public education."

Meanwhile,  the struggle over testing in North Carolina continues.  MecklenburgACTS,  which fought Gorman's testing push,  has launched a new petition drive to get the state to postpone and rethink its latest round of testing,  which is tied to national Common Core standards.  UNCC students have created United to End Standardized Testing,  or UnTEST.  Mooresville Superintendent Mark Edwards,  recently named national Superintendent of the Year,  is working with Morrison to try to persuade state officials that while some testing is helpful and appropriate,  the current plans go too far.

Rebecca Garland,  chief academic officer for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction,  says opponents are exaggerating the scope of new testing.  In the December article,  Morrison referred to 177 new state tests,  a number that  MecklenburgACTS leaders Pamela Grundy and Carol Sawyer repeated in an opinion piece on the Observer's editorial page this week.

"Never, at any point in time, has NCDPI planned to implement 177 new tests across the state,"  Garland writes in a rebuttal submitted to the Observer today.  "In 2012-13, there were 35 new tests, but for many different subjects that have not been traditionally tested.  We will add an additional nine next year."

Here is Garland's description of the new tests, which is the most detailed I've seen:

Of the 35 added this year, six are specifically to meet the needs of students in the Occupational Course of Study, which is designed for students with disabilities.  Within the 35, there also are exams designed for various implementation plans for the new standards.  For example, a typical high school junior would only take one math Common Exam.  The district will select from four options (Algebra II, Common Core Math III, Common Core Integrated Math III, and Common Core Algebra II) based on decisions they have made locally about transitioning to the new standards.  

At the high school level, new tests should REPLACE current tests that teachers are using during the regular final exam schedule. For example, a World History student who previously spent 90 minutes taking a teacher-made final exam will now spend that time taking a Common Exam in World History. No additional testing time is required.

At the middle school level there will be five new assessments -- two in science (grades 6 and 7) and three in social studies (one each for grades 6-8).  This ensures no students are left out when we look at the picture of teacher impact on student growth.  For example, a seventh-grade teacher may teach English to 25 students and social studies to 60 other students.  Should we ignore those 60 students when we look at how students are growing?  The answer, of course, is no.

At the elementary level, there are three new exams – fourth-grade social studies and science and fifth-grade social studies – that schools may use if they need to or if they choose to use them. A school would need to use these only if they had elementary school teachers who do not teach English Language Arts or mathematics. For example, if a fifth-grade teacher were to teach only science and social studies, their school would need a way to measure the impact of that teacher on their students. That’s where these new exams would be used.

Diane Ravitch coming to Charlotte

If you care about education,  chances are you have a strong opinion about Diane Ravitch.

Ravitch

She certainly has strong opinions about education.  And she'll be sharing them in Charlotte on March 20,  when UNC Charlotte brings her to town.  A community conversation with Ravitch is open to the public at no charge, from 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. in McKnight Auditorium, Cone Center, main campus. Register here to attend.  Later that evening she'll give the TIAA-CREF lecture for an invitation-only crowd that. It's titled "The Death and Life of the Great American School System," echoing the title of one of her best-known books.

 Ravitch is a professor, researcher, author and former official in the U.S. Department of Education, under President George H.W. Bush. She has emerged as one of the nation's most vocal critics of test-driven accountability,  the privatization of public education and the influence of philanthropists and foundations she dubs  "the Billionaire Boys' Club."

And at 74,  she has embraced digital communication and social media with zeal.  She tweets prolifically  (@DianeRavitch),  posts on her blog and contributes to many others.  So even if you miss her appearance,  chances are you can keep up with what she thinks of her visit to a city where all of her favorite issues are alive and vigorously debated.   

Testing wars: The national scene

The battle over testing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is a microcosm of what education reporter John Merrow dubs "the education wars" being fought among the nation's top educators, policy-makers and journalists.

Here at home, interim Superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh has just invited more teachers to weigh in on the controversial testing program CMS launched during the past school year. And last weekend the Observer ran New York Times columnist David Brooks' piece on why he thinks Diane Ravitch is wrong about testing.

Now Merrow, whose readers recently chose Ravitch as the most influential educator in America, fires back at Brooks and others. His blog post offers a summary of the issues and players, contending that "at stake in this struggle is nothing less than the direction of public education," and that today's public schools are the equivalent of yesterday's pony express.

It's probably worth noting, as journalists such as Merrow, Brooks and NBC's Brian Williams join the fray, that Eric Frazier and I are not opinion writers, even in the blog. Some posters have asked us to take a stand or voice more outrage. That's not what we do; we'll stick to providing readers the chance to explore various views and air their own.

Diane Ravitch: Bold crusader or self-promoter?

At meetings of parents and teachers opposed to CMS' testing and performance pay efforts this spring,  Diane Ravitch's name came up often.  The researcher,  writer and former U.S. assistant secretary of education has emerged as the country's most vocal opponent of the reform course being charted by the likes of U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan,  former Washington, D.C.,  schools chancellor Michelle Rhee and philanthropists Bill Gates and Eli Broad.  She's viewed by many as the strongest voice standing up to an anti-teacher agenda.

Lots of local folks -- me included -- have been intrigued by her recent book "The Death and Life of the Great American School System."  For those who want to know more about the person, Washington City Paper has an in-depth profile looking at her rise to fame, her lifelong tension between conservatism and liberalism,  and the charges that she's pushing a "philosophy of resentment" that bolsters the status quo.

As reporter Dana Goldstein notes,  it's an interesting time when a 72-year-old education wonk not only appears on Jon Stewart's Daily Show but tweets so much she has inspired a parody Twitter feed.

The Broad barrage

If only I could have cloned myself, I'd have been out front on the Eli Broad story.

Last summer, in writing an application for a seminar at Columbia University, I outlined the involvement of the Broad Foundation in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and discussed my interest in exploring how private philanthropy is shaping public education. When I got there, it turned out a lot of us were asking similar questions.

Now that I've finally broken off time and gotten some information on grant money from CMS, everyone's buzzing about Broad. Readers have been sending me great links. So, for those who want to delve deeper than the print article can go, here's more.

The nudge that finally got me focused on Broad was a recent article in the Raleigh News & Observer about how Broad might influence their new superintendent, who is being mentored by fellow Broad Superintendents Academy graduate Peter Gorman. There's also a WakeEd blog item that explores that issue.

Newsweek just published an investigation of whether investments by Broad, Gates and other education philanthropists have had the desired results. The conclusion: Not usually. The magazine looks at 10 school districts, none in the Southeast.

If you're trying to sort out the Broad/CMS connection, one of the biggest challenges is figuring out the "performance management" project that's gotten big bucks from Broad, Gates and Dell. CMS officials have been talking about this for years, and I've never quite gotten my head around a way to describe it in a newspaper article. When I asked CMS folks to help me with a clear, concise description, they sent me a four-page report. Here it is. The condensed version, from Chief Accountability Officer Robert Avossa: It's about providing educators with data to make decisions and creating systems to hold people accountable for results. Testing and performance pay are part of performance management, but it's a broader effort that includes CMS's school progress reports and school quality reviews.

The Broad Foundation Web site contains some details about the CMS connection, but it takes some hunting (again, thanks to readers who got me started). Here's a description of the Broad approach to investing, and here's where they list CMS as one of the foundation's investments in "redesigned, high-performing institutions." Here's information about the academy that trained Gorman and Wake's Anthony Tata, and the residency program that has placed other administrators in CMS.

An astute reader noted that Gorman is a member of the Broad Center's board of directors, and questioned whether that makes it a conflict for CMS to be a finalist for the Broad Prize for Urban Education. Foundation spokeswoman Erica Lepping said it would be if Gorman were a foundation board member. But the center is a separate nonprofit group that's funded by the foundation, she said, and is not involved in awarding the prize, which brings national prestige and hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships.

On the anti-Broad side, "How to tell if your district is infected by the Broad virus," orginally posted on a Seattle education blog, is getting a lot of circulation. And here's the Parents Across America "guide to the Broad Foundation." Those who are interested in the perspective of Diane Ravitch, a PFA founder and national education writer/researcher, can find more about the role of philanthropists in her book "The Death and Life of the Great American School System."

I cringed when I saw that the "virus" checklist includes "Local newspaper fails to report on much of this." I'll take the blame for putting Broad below the breaking news about school closings, performance pay and such. If Broad has a strategy for squelching news coverage, the only part I saw in action was that the school board's Broad-sponsored retreats were often too dull to generate stories.


Got more recommended reading? Post links in comments. The spam filter may snag them, but I'll check periodically to retrieve them. Be patient, though; it is Mothers Day.

Parents mobilize nationwide

Pam Grundy, a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools parent activist (and frequent poster to this blog), will be part of next week's launch of Parents Across America, a coalition of parents who support equity, diversity and parent involvement in public education.

She says the idea for a national parents' network emerged as local activists realized that issues they were dealing with often originate on a national level. Big-money donors such as The Broad Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation push their visions of reform. The U.S. Department of Education is using Race to the Top money to shape how states and local districts deal with failing schools.

Grundy says she and parents from Wake and Durham counties are working with activists from Chicago, New York and other districts across the country to sort out the issues and make their voices heard. Diane Ravitch, an author, education professor and former assistant secretary of education, will give the keynote speech at Monday's launch in New York City. Click the link above to learn more about the parents group.