WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Raise Your Hand on return of PARCC

“To have the Illinois test ready for spring, ISBE has basically adopted PARCC for one more year,” the group said in a statement. -- Sun-Times

John Dingell's last words

Opponents of the Medicare program that saved the elderly from that cruel fate called it “socialized medicine.” Remember that slander if there’s a sustained revival of silly red-baiting today. -- Washington Post

Amy Klobuchar's poke at Clinton

"I think we're starting in Wisconsin because as you remember there wasn't a lot of campaigning in Wisconsin in 2016. With me, that changes." -- The Hill

Toni Preckwinkle

 “Can we count on you when it’s needed to say no to the teachers union?” Flannery asked. “Of course,” Preckwinkle said. “Of course.” -- Chicago Tribune

Robert Reich

 America will never be a socialist country,” Donald Trump declared in his State of the Union address. Someone should alert Trump that America is now a hotbed of socialism. But it is socialism for the rich. Everyone else is treated to harsh capitalism. -- Guardian

WEEKEND QUOTABLES 'Move fast and break things...'

Bannon: "Move fast and break things" 

Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

“We have got to have the guts to take on the insurance companies and the drug companies and move forward toward a Medicare-for-all, single-payer program, And I’ll be introducing legislation shortly to do that.” -- All In with Chris Hayes

Chicago Ald. Roderick Sawyer

"I just don't know what value he [Paul Vallas] adds to this university, that's my concern. I don't even know what a crisis intervention specialist means." -- Chicago Tribune

 Allyson Moloney, a K-4 special education teacher

“All of our paraprofessionals are tied up with testing. Even our ‘specials’ teachers — gym and tech — are tied up with PARCC testing. We don’t have a lot of extra bodies that can help us out.” -- Sun-Times

Reince Priebus

"I'm not in any trouble." -- Politico

Nicole Jorwic, dir. of rights policy for the Arc, an advocacy organization for people with intellectual disabilities 

We would hope that in his future rulings, Judge Gorsuch would see that the purpose of IDEA is to help students with disabilities achieve more meaningful progress that can ultimately lead to their success and full life in their communities." -- New York Times

Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE)

“By appointing Mr. Severino to enforce the life-saving protections that he has made his personal mission to dismantle, the Trump administration has once again put the fox in charge of the hen house." -- LGBTQ Nation

Gwenda Blair, Trump biographer 

...said of Trump’s supporters: “They voted for a guy who could fix it, the CEO, on The Apprentice for 10 years, who could make a deal with anybody.”  -- Guardian

A collage of what passes for school reform around here.

Correction: Thanks to John Merrow and several other readers for catching this error in the story below. As John points out: The Emerson Collective is run by Laurene Powell Jobs, not Mark Zuckerberg and Pricilla Chan. While there is a former USDE official working there, it's not Jim Shelton; it's Russlynn Ali.  I actually knew this and had it right on my Schooling in the Ownership Society post from a week ago. --- M.K. 

If somehow we could collage these four articles from today's Tribune, it would offer a realistic look at the current state of what passes for Chicago school reform:

Can Duncan save Lucas' ghastly Star Wars Museum?

Article #1 --Yes, Arne Duncan is back in town. In case you were worrying about whether or not Obama's former Ed Secretary would land on his feet after the Race To The Top Debacle, fear not. He's doing fine, thanks to billionaire friends like Mark Zuckerberg, Pricilla Chan, and George Lucas.

Zuckerberg and wife Pricilla hired Duncan for a leadership role in their so-called Emerson Collective where he joins up again with his own former U.S. Education Department deputy secretary Jim Shelton to advise of corporate-style reform and privatization matters.

No word yet on how much they're paying him. Whatever it is, it's just chump change to MZ. He's the guy who once dropped $100M to underwrite Newark's version of school reform under Gov. Christie and former mayor, Corey Booker. Nobody knows exactly how all that money was spent. But suffice to say, it hasn't done much to improve teaching/learning. Most of it, I'm told, went into the pockets of the charter school operators.

As backup, Arne has secured a spot on the Lucas Museum's Board of Directors. They are all hoping that this appointment leaves a glimmer of hope that the horrifically ugly Star Wars Museum will still end up on the city's valuable lakefront property, for free.

Duncan, who also served as Chicago Public Schools chief from 2001 to 2009,  previously worked at Ariel Investments, where George Lucas' wife, Mellody Hobson, is president. Ariel's CEO, John Rogers. has long been one of Duncan's benefactors.

Hey, if a man can't call on billionaire friends for a job, what kind of society have we become?
Right?

"Reform Specialist"

Article#2 -- A "reform specialist" retires. This Trib story about the retirement of North Chicago's Chief Education Officer Ben Martindale, refers to him as the district's "reform specialist" who got his high-paid position when the district (4,000 mainly poor and children of color) became the target of a state takeover five years ago.

Fast forward to today to see the only results the reformers seem to care about.

 On the academic front, only 10 percent of North Chicago students met or exceeded state standards in math and English language arts last year on the new statewide standardized exam called the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, compared to 33 percent statewide, according to state data. About 7 percent of North Chicago students scored a combined score of at least 21 on the ACT, an indicator the state uses to determine college readiness, compared to 46 percent statewide.

"There's a lot of room left to go in terms of improvement," Martindale said.

Something to consider. Maybe the district's students needed something more than a state takeover and a "reform specialist."

Article#3 -- Rahm won't go to Springfield to lobby for CPS funding.
The reason, he's got no juice. Nobody, from Gov. Rauner to Speaker Madigan, gives a damn about what Rahm wants or thinks.

As it stood Tuesday, an Emanuel trip to the Capitol this week seemed unlikely, said top administration officials who were not authorized to discuss the mayor's schedule public.

 For the mayor, deciding whether to insert himself into the delicate situation at a stalemated Capitol carries some risk. Though he could claim some measure of credit if a funding bill that helps CPS passes following an eleventh-hour visit, Emanuel could get stuck with an even bigger share of the political blame if he goes there and the legislature then doesn't act on education funding, or passes a bill that doesn't help Chicago the way he wants.

So this isn't really about school funding, is it? Rahm won't advocate in Springfield for the school for fear of being rejected. Luckily thousands of union members heading for the capitol don't see it that way.

Schools are filthy but Magic cleans up. 

Article@4 -- Millions more for SodexoMAGIC.  So far, Rahm's privatization of custodial services has been a disaster for garbaged-up schools and their principals. But that won't stop the mayor from doubling down. 

The district, citing its bleak financial condition, privatized many building maintenance duties in 2014 but quickly started receiving complaints about dirty schools.

"These are the same companies with complaints against them for dirty, filthy schools," William Iacullo, president of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 143, told the school board Wednesday. "But you guys are going to reward them with an expansion."CPS has so far paid Johnson's company more than $37 million since the district's 2014 budget year, according to school records. The Aramark division responsible for school maintenance has received about $167 million.

So there's the picture. It ain't pretty. Is it? Reform needs reform.

PARCC predicts college 'success'. So what?

Got this in my mail today from the right-wing think-tankers at the Hoover Institute: "PARCC and Massachusetts state exams predict college success equally well." 

My response: So what? So does poverty.

They're notifying us ed bloggers about a "first of it's kind" study comparing PARCC and MCAS as predictors of college success.

But unfortunately, there's still no better predictors of college success than poverty and race. That's especially true now that college tuition rates and the cost of student loans has made a college degree barely accessible to all but the children of the wealthy.

Without getting into all the methodological problems with this un-amazing new study, I will just say that it in no way measures the probability of high school students' college success -- meaning graduation with a degree in a reasonable and affordable number of years.

Instead, it looks at high school test-takers' grades in their freshman year of college. And guess what this break-through study finds? The same kids who scored high on PARCC and MCAS in high school also got high marks in their freshman year at college. Amazing discovery!

The study doesn't track students beyond that year and doesn't look at other factors, like creativity, perseverance, collaboration, vision and self-discipline, which are just a few basic qualities that correlate with college success. So the think-tankers are claiming way too much. And it made no difference which tests the students took. The results came out the same. 

College degree completion by race. 

Not to mention (but I will) the fact that MCAS was never designed as a predictor of college success. Rather it was supposed to measure students’ proficiency relative to statewide curriculum standards. That all changed with the adoption of Common Core and the PARCC exam, designed by Pearson, Inc. and underwritten largely by the Gates Foundation. 

The stated purpose of PARCC is to measure whether students are on track to succeed in college. Since standardized test scores align most closely with family income and education, school districts could have save billions by cancelling the tests and simply asking parents to send in the IRS forms. 

By pushing these tests as predictors, the think-tankers and test makers are actually turning them into gate keepers. 

The topper -- many of even the elite universities now pay little or no attention to applicants' standardized test scores. So much the better. 

More evidence that PARCC test is bogus. Parents were smart to opt-out.

PARCC officials are still working to determine the full scope and causes of last year’s score discrepancies, which may partly result from demographic and academic differences between the students who took the tests on computers and those who took it on paper, rather than the testing format itself. -- EdWeek

Touted by Arne Duncan, bankrolled by the Gates Fundation and designed by Pearson Education Inc., the world's largest textbook/testing company, PARCC was supposed to provide us with the new and better model of "game changing", 21st-Century, high-stakes standardized testing. Aligned with Common Core standards and curriculum, it was billed as a high-validity measure, not only of student progress in learning, but teacher competency.

But now there's compelling evidence to show that what PARCC really measured had less to do with anything going on in the classroom than it did with demographics (race and class) and familiarity with computers.  Questions have arisen around the validity of the 2014-15 PARCC test results after officials from the testing consortium revealed that students who took the tests on computers scored, overall, lower than those who did not. Four out of every five students took the test via computer.

It was a year ago that Chicago's prison-bound schools chief, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, tried to delay giving PARCC for a year because the district didn't "have enough computers" to properly administer the tests. But threatened by State Board Chair Rev. James Meeks with a loss of federal funds, she and her boss, Rahm Emanuel, complied and gave them anyway, with some kids taking PARCC on computers and others taking the pencil-and-paper version.

“Therefore, we are directing you to administer the PARCC assessment to all students. If any district does not test, ISBE will withhold its Title I funds. We will also seek to recoup the state funds spent on any test booklets unused by the district, as well as any restocking fees charged to ISBE by our testing vendor.” -- ISBE Chairman Rev. James Meeks 

It turns out, BBB was on to something. Now we learn that students who took the computer version of PARCC, scored lower on average than students who used paper and pencil.

Test results for the state's two million students plummeted to their lowest point in a decade with nearly 70% failing the PARCC.

Gov. Rauner's schools chief Tony Smith, whistled past the graveyard.

"I think the promise of PARCC is greater than the promise of most of the other assessments we’ve ever had. Kids can test to the edge of their knowledge."

Arne Duncan agreed...

"It actually doesn't concern me at all. What Illinois and many other states are doing is finally telling the truth." (EdWeek)

Yes, the truth.

The truth is that the thousands of parents who opted their kids out of PARCC testing were the smart ones. But it's the kind of smarts that standardized tests don't measure.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, will speak at today's pre-strike rally in Grant Park amid stalled contract talks with the school district. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

CEO Forrest Claypool to the City Club of Chicago 

"We are at a breaking point." -- Tribune

MTA Pres. Barbara Madeloni 

“It [Common Core testing] is destructive to our students and our teachers and the very possibility of joyful and meaningful public education...We’ve really flipped the narrative in a year.” -- NY Times

Thomas Gattuso, principal of Sullivan House

We are looking for justice. If Laquan had shot the policeman 16 times, he wouldn’t have been at a desk job 13 months later.” -- Sun-Times

Rev. Jesse Jackson

" My greatest fear is not the protest, but if there is no protest.” -- NY Times

Donald Trump

"Maybe the guy should have been roughed up a little." -- Raw Story

Letter to Mark Zuckerberg from former classmate, teacher Emily Talmage

Let me assure you that “personalized learning,” as it is being pushed by the Gates Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Digital Learning Now Council, as well as countless educational technology companies, start-ups, and venture capitalists who have invested millions into personalized learning experiments (they call them “innovations”), is a far, far cry from the type of education we got at Exeter. -- Washington Post

HUNGER STRIKE, DAY 32 -- 70% fail PARCC exam. Duncan calls it 'telling the truth'

Test results for IL's 2,000,000 students have plummeted to their lowest point in a decade. They purport to show nearly 70% of them failing the PARCC. Pearson will deliver the rest of the test results on Monday and then it will take the state board two more weeks to check the data. But the results were a foregone conclusion long before the tests were given.

Rauner's schools chief Tony Smith, whistling past the graveyard.

"I think the promise of PARCC is greater than the promise of most of the other assessments we’ve ever had. Kids can test to the edge of their knowledge."

Arne Duncan agrees...

"It actually doesn't concern me at all. What Illinois and many other states are doing is finally telling the truth." (EdWeek)

Yes, the truth. Duncan doesn't even have to see the numbers to know that they tell the truth. In fact, numbers only confuse him.


DAY 32 of the Dyett hunger strike. Don't miss Carol Marin's excellent interview with hunger strikers Jitu Brown and Anna Jones.

Jitu on Facebook says that hunger strikers are meeting with CPS leadership over the next few days. He will keep us posted.

Here's an Open Letter to Alderman Will Burns on the Dyett Hunger Strike from Julie Woestehoff, former Executive Director of Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE)

KOCO’s decision to sponsor a hunger strike is a reflection of their extreme frustration with you and other education policy makers. The fact that several members of your community have been willing to put their lives on the line to join them, and that others are actively supporting them, suggests that many share this frustration.

You can join the hunger strikers & NBC National Nightly News on a peaceful vigil to Obama's home, beginning at Dyett 555 E 51st, at 6 P.M. ‪#‎FightForDyett‬

After all the wasted test-prep hours and Common Core testing madness...

"We've been writing and meeting with ISBE officials for over two years to stop this madness. We've told them that our technology isn't ready, our Common Core curriculum isn't ready and the test will be hurting kids," said Argo Community High School District 217 Superintendent Kevin O'Mara, who also is president of the Illinois High School District Organization.

The results from last spring's PARRC exams are dismal by anyone's standards.

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you. Statewide, even counting the wealthy high-scoring districts, selective-enrollment schools and privately-run charters, we're seeing single digits (2% of 3rd graders, 5% of high school students) in numbers of kids exceeding expected measurable outcomes in language arts/literacy. Nearly 70% fail rate across the state.

I'm still waiting to see how this breaks out in Chicago and by race and special ed. 

Millions of dollars spent on Common Core and PARRC testing (you're welcome Pearson). Thousands of classroom hours diverted away from teaching/learning and into testing and test prep. School districts threatened with loss of funding if parents opted-out. Teachers evaluated, paid, promoted and fired, using skewed value-added formulas based on students' test scores. And most importantly, nearly all of Illinois' 2 million students set up for failure.

The fallout could be disastrous. Early test failure usually leads to more kids dropping out. Chicago's school population is already down 100,000 students from a year ago.  

This is what decades of corporate-style "reform" and years of No Child Left Behind and Race To The Top has left us with. Thank you Margaret Spellings and Arne Duncan. 

This isn't about failing schools or bad teachers. It's about a failed system with failed leadership. It's also about rising conditions of concentrated child and family poverty and the under-funding of schools.

Rauner's new state schools chief, Tony Smith, thinks this is all great. "A new baseline" he says, with the admonition that the scores should not be used to "shame or punish". Where has he been these past two decades? That's all they've been used for. 

Parents who opted-out were spot on. Subjecting children to hours of standardized testing when everyone knew the game was rigged, served no educative purpose. It's too bad there weren't more. Maybe next time there will be enough to stop the gears from turning. 

Let's get behind Rep. Guzzardi's Opt-Out bill. 

PARCC test does just what is intended - set students, teachers up to fail (STATEMENT) http://t.co/Am4lhHUAiC

— ChicagoTeachersUnion (@CTULocal1) September 16, 2015

Goodhart's Law of unintended consequences

Goodhart's law is named after the banker who originated it, Charles Goodhart. Its most popular formulation is: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

In other words: “When you put a lot of weight on one measure, people will try to do well on that measure,” says Jonah Rockoff of Columbia. “Some things they do will be good, in line with the objectives. Others will amount to cheating or gaming the system.”

What are the consequences of grading teachers by the test? Economics writer Eduardo Porter's NYT piece refers to Goodhart's Law in the context of using high-stakes, standardized tests to grade teachers.

Luis Garicano at the London School of Economics calls it the Heisenberg Principle of incentive design, after the defining uncertainty of quantum physics: A performance metric is only useful as a performance metric as long as it isn’t used as a performance metric.

Porter quotes Randi Weingarten:

“People who claim to be market-based reformers want to sell the theory that there is a direct correlation between test scores, the effort of teachers and the success of children,” said Randi Weingarten, who heads the American Federation of Teachers. “It just ignores everything else that goes into learning.”

I only wish that Randi would have remembered that when she signed on to Arne Duncan's call for more and earlier national high-stakes testing. AFT’s position is detailed in a joint statement issued with the Center for American Progress, a Democratic Party aligned think tank.

“We propose to keep annual tests so parents have valid information about their children’s progress but want to ensure that any school accountability a system has a broader array of indicators that fully captures how our children are learning,” said CAP President Neera Tanden.

Randi and CAP's assumption here is that tests like the PARCC can really provide "valid information" even with Goodhart's Law in play.

Porter says:

Teachers argue there is no way they could isolate the impact of teaching itself from other factors affecting children’s learning, particularly such things as the family background of the students, the impact of poverty, racial segregation, even class size.   

As usual, the teachers are right.

Porter wimps out at the end of his piece, quoting rabid testing proponent and former NYC Chancellor Joel Klein who calls for reliance on so-called "value-added scores" in order "to penalize or reward teachers". Porter, like Weingarten, calls for grading teachers on student test scores along with "other measures." That is the current approach in most districts these days.

But even with the mixed-measures approach, the high-stakes tests when used to determine teachers' and administrators' salaries have more power than any of the softer measures of student/teacher performance and therefore are really all that counts. The unintended consequences include gaming the system and teaching to the tests. It also ignores the role that poverty and other out-of-school factors play on measurable student/teacher performance.

High-stakes, standardized testing is part of the problem. Not part of the solution. It shouldn't be used, even in combination with other more valid measures, to grade teachers.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

SEIU Local 1 President Tom Balanoff 

“Mayor Emanuel doesn’t understand that what made Chicago great was working people. We think he has totally turned his back on that.” -- Sun-Times

Heather O’Donnell, vice president of public policy for Thresholds

“It’s like cutting someone off from chemotherapy when they have cancer.” -- Rauner's mental health cuts hit firefighter's family hard 

N.J. Superintendent Elizabeth C. Jewett 

I did not authorize the release of this email nor am I aware of who did release it. I am also not aware of the motives they may have had behind the release. That said, I completely stand behind my comments as they represent not only my views and concerns; they also represent the views and concerns of our Board of Education. -- Answer Sheet, Pearson monitoring social media for security breaches during PARCC testing

Diane Ravitch

 The Network for Public Education enthusiastically endorses Jesus (Chuy) Garcia for Mayor of Chicago. The election has national significance. NPE believes it will send a message that closing public schools en masse and replacing them with private charters is unacceptable; that the public schools are a public responsibility and should be fully funded to meet the needs of students. -- Ravitch Blog

CPS spokesman Bill McCaffrey 

"Cease and desist" directive was given to any principal whose conduct could be construed as not following district policy in giving the state exams. -- PARCC testing launches with some pushback, confusion

Wanted: A mayor willing to stand up and make the tough decisions. Not Rahm the whiner.

It seems the Little Emperor has turned into the big whiner.

No sooner had Republican Sen. Kirk warned us, in racist code language, that if strongman Rahm wasn't re-elected, the city would turn into Destroit, than the mayor became wussified.

First he cries to S-T's Fran Spielman that Chicago's fiscal fiasco "isn't my fault". Waaah!

He blames the city's crashing bond rating and all the other city's financial problems on the Daley's. That's gratitude for you. This, after his predecessor was nice enough to hold his nose and endorse Rahm. Let that be a warning to all other potential endorsers. You know who you are. 

Chuy and Richie definitely ought to grab a cup of coffee. 

Parents ready to fight PARCC

Next the kinder, gentler Rahm claimed he had "no choice" but to cave in to Gov. Rauner's threats over the PARCC tests. This even after his own schools CEO warned that giving PARCC was, "absolutely not in the best interests of our students."

 “Once the federal government and the state were threatening to cut hundreds of millions and billions of dollars off, which would have dramatically increased the teacher student ratio, it was clear that that was . . .  a bridge too far,” the mayor said.

Yes, we've all seen that movie, Rahm. But seriously, did you or anyone else really believe that Rauner could get away with holding back $1.8 billion in Title I poverty funds from a school district with nearly 90% of students of color and living in poverty? Rahm could have, should have, stood up for the thousands of Chicago's students and parents who are ready to opt-out and go to the wall over PARCC. Why no testing waiver application to his boy Arne Duncan at the DOE? And as for the state, doesn't his pal Boss Madigan still control what goes on in Springfield? Isn't that why they still have the mayor in charge of the schools?  According to Spielman:

Emanuel cut off the questioning before he could be asked about parent-led student boycotts or about whether he had lobbied the state and federal government behind the scenes to delay the test or drop the threat of penalties.

What up with that, tough guy? Since when do you get bullied by a political neophyte, wine-tasting, suburbanite from Winnetka? Ooops, I forgot... Sorry.

Brother Fred

Funniest TV Rahm ad... Axelrod could have saved some money on this one. It has kinder/gentler Rahm telling us what we already know:

"I can rub people the wrong way..."

You know what comes next -- the old,  "My strengths are my weaknesses" bit that I think Axelrod stole that one from Pres. Bush. Whatever. That's followed by Rahm's "listening tour", an idea borrowed from CTU Pres. Karen Lewis.

Today Rahm Emanuel launches a listening tour. Nearly 4 years into his mayoralty.
— Laura Washington (@MediaDervish) February 28, 2015

Let's not make it 5.

Rahm caves to Rauner threats. CPS will give high-stakes PARCC exam to unprepared schools

“I continue to personally and professionally believe that to administer PARCC this year is absolutely not in the best interest of our students." -- Byrd-Bennett

Rahm Emanuel looked befuddled as he hemmed and hawed last Thursday when Phil Ponce asked him straight-up -- Should CPS administer the PARCC test? I knew then that despite Byrd-Bennett's protestations, the mayor had already folded and wasn't about to stand up to threats from his pal, Gov. Rauner to withhold funding for city schools.

I hate bloggers who quote themselves. Having said that, I wrote the next morning:

He's lost. Non-responsive. I can't really blame him on that one. He's an education know-nothing and his own schools chief Byrd-Bennett has ordered that full PARCC testing be put off for a year, blasted the testing process and called the PARCC test “unproven.” All Rahm can do is mutter something about how the test needs improvement. He admits, "We haven't even gotten the results back from last-year's tests." But you can tell he's going to cave to Arne Duncan and Rauner's guy Meeks on this one and give the test anyway 

I was right. BBB announced yesterday that with a week to go before the PARCC testing window opens, all students in 3rd through 8th grade will take it.

Rahm's resistance turned out to be a sham. He could have asked Arne Duncan for a testing waiver and taken the state to court if they dared deny Chicago its share of federal dollars directed at the education of kids in poverty.

If he had called Rauner's bluff, he would have most certainly won the battle in the Democratic-controlled legislature and in the courts, leaving Rauner with egg on his face. He also might have reversed his falling polling numbers.

Once again, Rahm left his faithful schools CEO hanging in the wind. He and David Axelrod probably thought they could get through the first round elections without losing votes from angry CPS parents by delaying PARCC. Many of them are militantly opposed to subjecting their kids to the 11-hour testing regimen and the test-prep curriculum. Rahm must have figured he could win the election outright, avoid a runoff, and then give the test despite their hew and cry. He obviously guessed wrong.

The Sun-Times reports:

And with just a week before the testing period begins, parent groups and the Chicago Teachers Union are ramping up efforts to show parents how to get their children out of taking the tests, which they have said are burdensome to children and not ready for mass distribution.

I'm hoping Chuy Garcia will come out strong against the testing madness that is PARCC, call on willing parents, teachers and students to opt-out, and stand up to Rauner's threats.

A SmallTalk Salute goes out to the Local School Council at Nettlehorst Elementary. H/t Michelle Gunderson.

Local School council at Nettelhorst School unanimously votes to oppose PARCC testing @WilliamAyers @mikeklonsky http://t.co/aDQ2CkmFLG
— Michelle Gunderson (@MSGunderson) March 3, 2015

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Rahm Emanuel attends a 2011 fundraiser at the Chicago home of Rajiv Fernando, the CEO of Chopper Trading, a firm that has donated to Emanuel and ultimately benefited. (Nuccio DiNuzzo, Chicago Tribune)

Rahm is vulnerable

 "It's easy to see he's vulnerable by the amount he's raising that is absolutely obscene by any standard," said two-term Alderman Bob Fioretti, a frequent voice of dissent on a City Council that often backs the mayor's ideas. -- AP

CTU Pres. Karen Lewis

“We've had 25 years of this mayoral control and it's not working,” CTU President Karen Lewis says, noting that a union poll last year said 65 percent of Chicagoans favor an elected school board. -- Crain's

Meeks: Test or else

PARCC or else

“Therefore, we are directing you to administer the PARCC assessment to all students. If any district does not test, ISBE will withhold its Title I funds. We will also seek to recoup the state funds spent on any test booklets unused by the district, as well as any restocking fees charged to ISBE by our testing vendor.” -- ISBE Chairman Rev. Meeks and State Supt. Koch,  Sun-Times

Sugata Mitra

"We need a pedagogy free from fear..." -- TED

Duncan goes to war with Chicago over PARCC testing delay

Arne Duncan gives his more-testing announcement at Seaton Elementary School in Washington, D.C.

Sometimes the news is so bizarre that I can't believe what I'm reading. Case in point -- the latest on Chicago testing madness. First Arne Duncan gives his more-and-earlier testing speech to the nation. The speech is an attempt to pacify the testing industry and its backers and somehow push a new version of No Child Left Behind through a Republican controlled congress.

Then, just as Duncan is trying to work something out with Republican Lamar Alexander, the new head of the Senate Education Committee, Chicago school chief, Barbara Byrd-Bennett announces a one-year moratorium on administering the PARCC test because of a "lack of computers" (hold your laughter, please). BBB says the test will only be given this year to about 10% of CPS' 600 schools. The decision to postpone the test is made of course, not by BBB, but by Rahm Emanuel's hand-picked board and comes in the face of growing parent and teacher protest against Common Core over-testing and a burgeoning opt-out movement. It also comes weeks before the mayoral election.

POLITICO's Stephanie Simon sez:

Chicago’s stance could well inspire copycat insurrections in other districts, analysts said — and that could undermine not just the Common Core, but more than a decade of public policy that relies on standardized tests to hold schools and teachers accountable for helping kids learn.

BBB might have pulled it off if she hadn't joined a growing chorus of IL district superintendents openly attacking PARCC testing. She calls the test “unproven” and complains that adding such a long exam to a year already crammed with standardized tests would be overwhelming to students, teachers and principals. The PARCC test takes nine to 11 hours, depending on a student’s grade level.
Here comes the topper. Just as Pres. Obama is recording his endorsement ads supporting Rahm's re-election campaign, Duncan goes off on Rahm/Byrd Bennett and threatens to cut off potentially $1.2 billion in state aid unless CPS backs off and gives the test. The threat comes in a previously unpublicized letter to Illinois Schools Superintendent Christopher Koch from Duncan's deputy, Deborah Delisle.

Meeks freaks

Meeks freaks over possible billion-dollar loss of federal funds.  "We are greatly concerned about it," the Rev. James Meeks, Gov. Rauner's new chairman of the state school board, tells Greg Hinz at Crain's.

Hinz writes:

Her [BBB's] defiance was striking in a district that has long been viewed as a national leader in test-based accountability. It was also rich in symbolism because Chicago public schools were once run by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, a huge cheerleader for both the Common Core and the new exams, developed with $370 million in federal funds.

Politically, the problem is that, given national wrangling over school standards, Duncan cannot be seen as being easy on Chicago, said one source close to the center of the flap. That doesn't mean Illinois would lose all of the money, but a sizable hit is likely.

So, the question is: Is all this just a show? Or is Obama's Dept. of Education really going to war with Rahm Emanuel over testing on the eve of Chicago's mayoral election?

MORE PUSH-BACK ON PARCC COMMON CORE TESTING

Supt. Trish Kocanda

This time it comes from the leader of one of the nation's wealthiest and most progressive districts. Supt. Trish Kocanda of Winnetka Public Schools has written a "warning letter" to parents,  community members, and staff about the PARCC Common Core exam scheduled for March and May.

Kocanda's letter is published in today's Washington Post:

As we learn more about the assessment, we grow wary. We are concerned about the amount of instructional time it will displace, the impact this will have on students, and the usefulness of the results.

The Post's Valerie Strauss writes:

Winnetka, just north of Chicago, is one of the most affluent communities in the country. The Winnetka Public Schools district Web site says that the system has “led the nation in progressive education and served as model for educators who value the development of the whole child.” There are about 2,000 students in the system’s schools, all of whom leave the eighth grade and attend nationally recognized New Trier Township High School.

Kocanda's letter comes on the heels of Ed Sec. Arne Duncan's call for even more and earlier high stakes standardized testing.

Back in November, the superintendent of neighboring Evanston Township launched a blistering attack on PARCC testing.

“Students taking both PARCC mathematics and reading language arts tests will spend more time taking PARCC tests than aspiring lawyers will spend sitting for the Bar Exam with no payoff,” said Pete Bavis, District 202 assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction.

Last week Chicago Public Schools delayed most PARCC testing for a year, with Supt. Byrd-Bennett claiming that that not enough computers were in place to administer the tests to more than 10% of CPS students. She made no critique of Common Core testing but was obviously worried about possible results and fallout from the tests.

But you can bet Winnetka's blast at Duncan's testing madness won't be the last.