Grumpy Educators Award Nominations

"Knowledge is power."

Blogs written by parents and community members on the subject of education reform is increasing and explaining education reform initiatives that main stream media ignores. It is still difficult for non-educators to access information explained well; but there are some solid resources available now. Since January, after careful review and selection, I visit several to learn and stay current.

Inspired by Edublog Awards, Grumpy Educators created its own awards and announces winners for the education-related blogs that contributed the following:

• Brought parent, community member, and student perspectives out of the shadows


• Brought factual information to the public that would not be found otherwise


• Encouraged avenues for critical and constructive dialogue on educational change

The Golden Grumpy Educator Award
Huge thanks to Education Matters for the most referrals of all time that led readers to Grumpy Educators and for the comprehensive reporting on all things education, and provides focus on North Florida. Education Matters is a very important resource for all Floridians.

BEST FLORIDA INDIVIDUAL BLOG
Scathing Purple Musings keeps an eye on all things education in Florida. Scathing Purple Musings scooped a real analysis on the success of charter schools in Florida, revealing that 15 of the 31 Florida "F" schools were charters. This fact did not go unnoticed. Florida Senator David Simmons recently commented on this fact. The storm clouds are brewing for the 2012 legislative session. Scathing Purple Musings will remain my go-to blog for current information.

BEST FLORIDA INFORMATION RESOURCE ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS
Florida has a sizable population of students who are learning the language and the academic subjects. ESOLFlorida is a resource covers the actions of the Florida legislature and the Florida DOE and the effects of those actions on those students in this state.


BEST EDUCATION REFORM INFORMATION RESOURCE
Largely, the public is uninformed regarding the facts of education reform initiatives. The popular narrative, cleverly controlled by education reform advocates keep the facts in the dark. Truth in American Education (TAE) is a one-stop facts only resource, providing the details on Common Core standards, Common Core assessment, and the longitudinal database (Pre-K through first year of college). To get a complete picture presented in a reader-friendly manner, TAE is the best resource on the internet.

BEST NON-EDUCATOR BLOG
Missouri Education Watchdog (MEW) calls out bi-partisan support, on local and national levels, for educational initiatives that undermine local control, parents rights, and otherwise, make no sense.
Clearly written and fact-based, MEW provides a view of Missouri and of the national scene.

BEST NEW TWITTER HASHTAG FOR PARENTS
#edparents - Great idea from The minds of kids blog. The blogger notes:

"I've not found a general hashtag for parent activists interested in connecting with other parents nationwide. We are critical to the fight against corporate education reform and high-stakes testing culture. Parents who advocate for a truly child-centered education for all students need a hashtag to call our own."

Education Reform In Context

Click on the picture to make it bigger and easy to see.

A picture is worth a million words.

#OCCUPYEDUN17: Bring parent, community member, and taxpayer opposition out of the shadows

Public opposition to education reform initiatives is widespread although it receives little national news coverage. Legislators at all levels are unresponsive, uninterested, or part of the problem. The numbers of parents, non-educators, community members, and taxpayers who are becoming informed and organizing are increasing nationwide.

Weakening and undermining local control over education are outcomes of the education reform efforts. Local control is a cornerstone to our democracy and a constant in communities. There is broad agreement across ideologies on that fact.

In an effort to bring public opposition to education reform initiatives out of the shadows, below are some areas of consensus:

1. End the expensive, ineffective, and punitive high stakes assessment.
2. End classroom environments that have been converted into test prep and testing centers.
3. Use the savings from #1 and 2 to return interesting and valuable electives - drama, art, home economics, computer skills, physical education, and vocational education courses.
4. Use the savings from #1 and 2 to maintain manageable class sizes so that teachers are able to meet individual needs.
5. Stop sending large sums of dollars going to Pearson, McGraw-Hill and other companies for the purpose of implementing unfunded and unfundable compliance and data-driven mandates.
6. Use the savings in #5, to restore reasonable class size for core classes, vocational education, and electives.
7. Hold Pearson, McGraw-Hill, and these other companies accountable to the same degree as schools are being held accountable.
8. Apply greater transparency regarding deals and paid for "junkets" made with Pearson, McGraw-Hill and other companies jumping into the profitable education sector. Unsure on the "junkets"? Read about 10 state commissioners of education who traveled around the world on Pearson's tab, "When Free Trips Overlap With Commercial Purposes."
9.Ensure meaningful school-based accountability that meets the NUT principle (No Unnecessary Testing).
10. Use existing measures, such as NAEP, to give a snapshot of student achievement and to report on sub-group accountability.
11. Support local control via publicly elected School Board members and maintain a reasonable salary for those elected positions.
12. Ditch the preschool through college longitudinal database and maintain parent rights guaranteed under FERPA, requiring consent for sharing of student data.
13. Ensure parent rights to opt out of any and all assessments, punitive-free.
14. Leave it to local control to implement teacher evaluation systems that are not dependent on students taking high stakes assessment.
15. Support communities and families so that all students are fed, housed, and receive medical care versus supporting runaway testing initiatives.

Education Reform: Show me the money - still asking

More and more fact-based, smart, and talented parents, community members, and taxpayers are blogging on education reform initiatives, filling in a notable gap and spurring a better informed public on the current initiatives.

Grumpy Educators recommends Race to the Top is a Race Off a Cliff posted on the Seattle Education blog.

Education reformers like to use the words "disruptive innovation" to describe current initiatives. I see a lot of expensive disruption and little innovation.

Seattle Education details on the costly confusion and waste that Race to the Top is causing.

HELP Committee leaves out parents

Pearson lobbyist Sandy Krell was listed as a witness to the full Senate HELP committee hearing on the reauthorization of legislation affecting national education. The ESEA bill is to replace NCLB. (Correction: Kress was not on the final list published 11/8).

However, parents were excluded from the hearing. Not a single parent was allowed as a witness to express national concerns.

Here's a statement from Parents Across America on the lack of parent voices.

Today, Parents Across America sent a letter to the members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee after noting that panelists testifying this morning at a committee hearing on reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education law included no parent representatives.

PAA has reached out to the HELP committee repeatedly with our concern that parent voices are being left out of this critical discussion of the federal laws which will impact our children’s education for years to come.

Below is the text of the letter to the HELP committee, which includes PAA’s recommendations for an improved ESEA. A chart comparing PAA’s positions with the current Senate proposal is here.

***

November 8, 2011

Re: Reauthorization of ESEA

Dear Senator Harkin and members of the HELP Committee:

We applaud the fact that you included several teachers and other educators as witnesses in today’s important hearing on reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. However, we were disappointed to see no parent representatives on the panel. As the primary stakeholders of the public schools, parents have a deep-rooted understanding of the challenges facing our educational system. Our perspective would provide valuable information and ought to be included in your deliberations.

Had a representative from Parents Across America been asked to testify, here’s what we would have said:

PAA opposes the current version of ESEA because, while some important modifications have been made, too many of the ineffective, damaging elements of NCLB remain in the Senate reauthorization proposal, and it does not address more important, fundamental problems facing our nation’s schools and students.

Specifically, instead of the rigid menu imposed on high-poverty schools needing improvement, including punitive school closings, privatization, or other set policies imposed from above with no track record of success, solutions should be devised through stakeholder input from the ground up, including parents. In addition, options should include research-based improvements such as class size reduction, expansion of preschool programs, and more parent involvement in decision making at all levels. Right now, schools with the most at-risk children are being closed or forced to arbitrarily fire half their staff. Not only does this seriously disrupt children’s lives, but it also undermines communities and fatally weakens the effort to recruit and keep high-quality teachers in our neediest schools. Given the harsh school budget cuts being carried out across the U. S., this is simply not the time to throw more precious education funds away on more experimental programs or damaging policies. with little oversight and few meaningful results.

We also feel strongly that parents must have the right to have their children opt out of high-stakes testing, and that any accountability
system should include multiple measures of success, including parent and teacher surveys. Attached please find a summary of specific
recommendations from PAA for a better ESEA, and a chart displaying our position on the current Senate bill.

We would welcome the opportunity to testify at any upcoming hearings called on the topic of ESEA reauthorization, or meet with legislators or staff at any time.

Thank you so much for your time and attention, and for your service to our children.

Sincerely,

Julie Woestehoff, Legislative Chair, Parents Across America
JulieW@ParentsAcrossAmerica.org

"Pearson" the corporate veil

The practice of the Pearson Foundation paying for Education Commissioners trips to China, Singapore, and Finland to meet their counterparts was reported in the New York Times. Included in that list was former Florida Education Commissioner Eric Smith, who went to Finland. Questioned about that trip, Smith says he checked with the Florida Department of Education's General Counsel to make sure accepting the paid trip was okay. The Counsel said it was and so he went. While Pearson refutes any notion of this being an unethical practice, Florida does have a $250 million contract with the company.

The Miami Herald reports that on Monday, Florida Representative Dwight Bullard called for an "inquiry" to be undertaken by the legislature into "state’s relationship with Pearson." Bullard says an inquiry is necessary:

“If the contract comes up again, and there is someone who can do it better and cheaper, and we put it out for a bidding process, trips to Helsinki seem to be a nice incentive to keep doing business with the company,” Bullard said. “I want to make sure Florida is getting the best bang for their tax dollars.”

Bob Schaeffer, a spokesman for FairTest, an organization which opposes standardized testing had this to say about Pearson's growth over the last decade:

“But in the course of this extremely rapid growth, the company has developed a track record that is the worst in the industry,” he said.

Having effectively driven out most of the competition, leaving too few to compare with, Pearson is likely to remain the worst.

Who pays? Who benefits?


Read more: Lawmaker calls for inquiry into testing company

Pearson fattens in the global learning sector

Florida: Bringing Parent Activism Out of the Shadows

In Brevard County, Florida, parents are fighting to keep the public schools in their communities open as the School Board looks for cost savings by closing schools that are considered too under capacity and moving the students to schools considered with room but not in the "under capacity" definition.

These closures have nothing to do with the performance of the schools, teachers, or students. Parents are certainly involved.

Under current conditions, Florida school boards are making tough budgetary decisions.

Little notice is given to parents who support the public schools in their communities.

This news report is worth paying some attention to.