Atnre Alleyne came out with a blog post this morning supporting a Governor Carney idea where Delaware rates schools with stars. Of course he did! I don’t care what you label them with: stars, letter grades, numbers, or rocket ships. It all translates to a comparison between apples and oranges. What I find most ironic about Alleyne’s post is how self-serving this is for him. As the guy behind Delaware Can, any school labeling further perpetuates the myth that companies like that thrive on: label, shame, and punish. Alleyne’s personal war against the Delaware State Education Association is filled with holes and misdemeanors! I thought I would pick apart a few of his “facts” and “myths”.
The Fallacy of Surveys
Thousands of Delawareans responded to the Delaware Department of Education’s 2014 survey indicating they want school performance ratings.
When you come out with a survey that doesn’t even ask the question “Do you think Delaware should have school performance ratings?” and you continue that survey with questions about those ratings, I don’t think it is fair to say that means “thousands of Delawareans” wanted this. The survey predetermined the school report cards was going to happen (as required by federal law) but that in no way to translates to the citizens of Delaware demanding this system.
Self-Serving Agendas
Recently a coalition of 24 community and business groups also sent the Department a letter with recommendations for the state’s ESSA plan that called for a “single summary rating for schools and districts…in order to ensure clarity for parents and community members.”
And who led that band of public education marauders, disguised as organizations wanting to help public education? Who corralled and convinced these 24 mostly non-profits who would benefit from what Alleyne wants? Who was also on the Governor’s Advisory Committee for the state ESSA plan and in a position to leverage his agenda? Yes, none other than Atnre Alleyne.
The Rating-Label Scheme
MYTH: School ratings are more of the type of “testing, labeling, and punishing” we do not need in our schools.
Yes, they are. Given that the weighting of these report cards is over 50% towards results from the Smarter Balanced Assessment so carefully masked as two different categories: growth and proficiency, it most certainly is a testing, labeling, and punishing apparatus.
Even The Feds Are Backing Away From Bad Education Policy
Today, federal law requires that we identify and “label” the bottom 5 percent of schools in our state. The school report cards to which the Department has committed renames those schools – from Priority and Focus schools to Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) and Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI) schools – and continues its support for these schools with access to more money and assistance. That’s not punishment. It’s being honest about where and how we need to help our schools.
A label is still a label even if you change the wording. I love the word “Targeted” because that is exactly what this system does. Jack Markell loved this and apparently Governor Carney does as well. U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos seems to be backing away from a federal accountability system and leaving it up to the states. Governor Markell embedded that system into Delaware and our whole education system is based on this. Alleyne, who used to work for the Delaware Dept. of Education, is very familiar with this system and knows exactly what it is meant for.
The Growth In Our Education System Is Malignant
It’s also important to remember that growth measures, which take into account how much a student’s performance has grown over a school year, also benefits schools with higher performing students in ensuring they help their students grow, as well.
Okay, this is the part that absolutely kills me! If a school has higher performing students, i.e., the average proficiency on SBAC is 3.87 out of 4, that does not leave much room for growth. But the illusion of having a growth goal of students reaching a 3.9 proficiency is not out of the ballpark. It is doable and can certainly happen. Take a school with a high population of low-income and students with disabilities, where the average SBAC proficiency is 1.24 and the growth goal to proficiency is 2.0, the whole system changes. The work needed to get to that score, with more challenging students with much higher needs, multiplies at an exponential rate. The odds of that school reaching that goal are much lower than the “high-performing” school that only needs to go up a tiny bit to reach their growth goals. It is comparing apples and oranges.
Judging The Haves and The Have-Nots And Voucherizing Students
MYTH: If you give schools a rating parents are just going to use that single rating to judge schools and ignore all the other information about a school’s performance.
This is an exercise in futility. This is the difference between the “haves” and the “have-nots”. The “haves” will utilize this system to find the “best” school for their child. Many of the “have-nots”, who in many cases aren’t even aware a system like this even exists, will simply send their child to the local neighborhood school. In the midst of this landscape we have the issue of school vouchers coming to the front burner. So much so that the feds are willing to dump all this truly bad accountability crap out the window in favor of a voucher system that will make private schools the next big thing. For reasons they aren’t saying, this will be the cushion for students from wealthier families for what happens next. See more on this later.
How To Place Yourself In An Area Of “Importance”
Our goal, as advocates and policymakers, must be to equip parents and taxpayers with school quality information that is easy to understand, fair, and consistent.
Notice Alleyne uses the word “Our”, as if he is the man behind the curtain waving the magic wand that mesmerizes his audience into taking his every word as the Gospel truth. For a guy that makes a living based on the very worst of corporate education reform Kool-Aid disguised as helping disadvantaged students, I encourage all Delawareans to take what he says with a grain of salt. Having met Alleyne in person, he is a nice guy. But his education policy and what he advocates for causes alarm bells to go off in my head. I get why he does what he does, but he is just another victim of the bad education policy that is fighting for its last legs in the new era of Trumplandia. I completely understand that he wants better education outcomes for minority students. I do as well. I also want that for students with disabilities and English Language learners. It is the way Alleyne wants this that bothers me. If society as a whole has not learned the valuable lesson that the continued use of high-stakes testing is just plain bad for public education, than folks like Alleyne will continue to spread their “myths” and “facts”. I say opt out of not just the high-stakes testing but also opt out of false edu-speak that exists to sway parents of student populations and trapping them in a system where testing reigns supreme.
What’s Up With All The Teacher Union Hate?
If there is one consistent question I’ve been asked by parents who seek to understand this system of high-stakes tests it is this: if we don’t use these tests how do we measure how our schools are doing? It’s a damn good question and I won’t pretend to have the answer. I have always suggested that a student’s classroom grades are more of a true measure than these once a year test scores. I don’t believe in students going on to the next grade if they aren’t ready. That is when parents need to carefully watch their child’s progress. It is not the end of the world if a student is held back. We need to also trust our teachers that their years of preparation and continued training serve to benefit our child’s success in education. If you have doubts about a teacher’s effectiveness than certainly question it. I believe it is our sacred duty to do so. But when we are given lie after lie about teachers from these education think tanks about how bad unions are and how they only want what is best for them, we have to recognize the truth: these companies do NOT want teacher unions to exist at all. They don’t like the idea of teacher’s organizing on behalf of themselves because it takes away from their profit-making ventures. The sad part is how so many parents actually believe these horrible lies about public education. So when unions fight against these bad policies they are immediately painted as the villain in articles like the one Alleyne wrote today. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the teacher unions are perfect. But I don’t think any organization, school, parent, student, or state agency is perfect. But there is a clear difference between offense and defense. I see corporate education reformers as a vicious marauder into areas where they have no business being in. The predictable result is teacher unions going on the defense against these schemes and agendas.
Opt Out Is The Only Defense
The only way to fight a bad system is to ignore it. This is why I have always defended a parent’s fundamental and God-given right to opt out of these silly little standardized tests. I refuse to give them the clout these companies think they deserve. I would rather hear the word of the teacher in the classroom who is on the ground floor watching the colossal waste of time these tests have. They are expensive, take up true teaching time, take up school resources, kill libraries during testing time, and the results serve no true purpose. If you haven’t opted your child out of the Smarter Balanced Assessment this year, please do so now. Even if they are already in the middle of testing. When many parents get the Delaware DOE suggested letter from the school about how opt out is illegal and the school can’t allow it, treat it as fire-starter material for a fire-pit in your backyard. Just write a letter to your child’s school stating you are opting your child out of the Smarter Balanced Assessment, hand it to the principal, and state there is to be no further discussion on the issue. If they attempt to dissuade you, give a pleasant “thank you but no thank you” and stand firm on your decision.
What Is A Governor To Do Facing A $385 Million Dollar Deficit?
For Delaware Governor John Carney, he faces a crucial moment. He has to make cuts in the state budget. There won’t be easy choices, but one should be a no-brainer: get rid of the dead and expensive weight at the Delaware DOE and get rid of the Smarter Balanced Assessment. Sever the ties between the Delaware DOE and these “non-profit” for-profit education companies. If that means getting rid of DOE employees whose sole existence is to continue what amounts to lobbying off the backs of children, just do it!
The True Goal Behind Alleyne And The Rodel Foundation
These are the end goals behind all this:
- Get rid of the teacher unions
- Have students learn in a 100% digital learning environment
- Create a competency-based education system which will prevent students with high needs from advancing more than ever before
- Track the hell out of the data in this ed-tech wonderland and create what amounts to a caste system where the best students get the best jobs and the struggling students get the menial jobs
- Do away with brick and mortar schools and have teachers become glorified online moderators
- Send young children to 3rd party organizations to get their “personalized learning” with Teach For America and other fast-track educator prep “teachers” guiding students
- Have older students logged into whatever Blockchain technology is coming our way where they “earn to learn” and companies profit from teenagers
Surf-And-Turf or Filet Mignon?
We see this in agendas like Delaware’s “Pathways to Prosperity” program. I attended Governor Carney’s Inaugural ball. All the food was prepared and served by students in the culinary program. The food was awesome. But did any of those students who prepared this food get paid for their servitude? I highly doubt it. I have no doubt they received some type of education credit for their service while the State of Delaware says “thanks for the cheap labor”. Or what about these “coding schools” where students pay thousands of dollars to train themselves on coding while at the same time doing work for very big companies through the training material? Our students are nothing more than fodder for corporations. They are the true victims in this new world and are being used by those whose biggest concern is if they should get the surf-and-turf or just the filet mignon at their next country club dinner.
The Season Of Myths 