There are two separate worlds within public education in Massachusetts: one that serves wealthy, majority-white communities and earns national praise, and another that educates low-income, often minority kids where dropout rates receive far more attention than test scores. In the wake of this growing chasm of education inequity between groups of kids in our state, StudentsFirst, a national grassroots advocacy organization led by school reformer Michelle Rhee, has graded our state education system and given it a “D+” for failing to enact polices that ensure all kids get an equally great education.
For a state accustomed to accolades for educational excellence, a D+ grade surely will earn scorn from defenders of the current system. Given what’s at stake, however, we should seize this criticism and take it as an opportunity for some self-reflection.
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Dear state reps: do not be fooled by studentsfirst, or Michelle Rhee. I am a Boston teacher and work at the Joseph Lee school in Dorchester, not far from Mattapan. I grew up in Dorchester and graduated from BPS, at Boston Latin School. It's time we use our common sense and TALK TO TEACHERS, not crab grass groups run be elitist educational charlatans. If you really want to improve student outcomes focusing on the myth of teacher centered reforms is absurd. Epidemiological, student centered reforms that tackle - not ignore - roadblocks caused by poverty would make sense. Test based evaluations, which are based on imperfect, classist, and profit driven assessments, are extremely detrimental to children's education on many levels. Firstly, fixating on tests narrows the curriculum to test prep and only to the core subjects that are included in high stakes testing. Statisticians have proven that a better metric for determining effective teachers would be to flip a coin. A teacher can be rated excellent one year, and than poor the following based on this quack science known as value added. Furthermore, this corporate based "competition" reform pits teachers against each other as we compete rather than collaborate. The hardest to teach kids will be shunned. Lastly, in states graded "higher" by these self styled union busters, cheating scandals seem ubiquitous. Please research the common sense side to this education reform debate, there is much more than meets the eye. Maybe even ask large Boston nonprofits to pay their fair in municipal services. They've been dodging their bills for 180 years!
Standardized tests are a waste of public money. In an age of scarcity, we should not be spending untold millions of tax dollars on practices that add nothing of value to children’s educations. Many of the finest school systems in the world do without standardized tests entirely, and such tests hardly figure in the lives of children in the elite private elementary schools that our political leaders send their kids to. We should stop funding the testing industry and use that money to hire teachers, build schools, and restore the arts and sciences to all our public schools. We cannot allow our children to be used as tools in the enforcement of unjust laws and destructive, wasteful policies. Hedge fund managers should not be able to look at education as the next big investment deal to build wealth portfolios at the expense of the low income families of America and their opportunity for a decent well rounded education. We can and must do better we need to build a society that is knowledgable and respectful and ready to tackle the issues that face our world.
Too bad the kicker for this column is "podium" and not "forum." That might offer some hope that the Globe would occasionally print articles that run counter to its emphatic editorial position of more testing and more charters. So much for the virtues of a free press. I imagine this the op ed pages of Chinese newspapers look a lot like this one. To the authors: You have tremendous (and tremendously misplaced) faith in standardized testing. I am not surprised given all the propaganda on this page for the past 20 years. As for Michelle Rhee, please watch the Frontline documentary. As one of those who spent his career teaching in one of those superior suburban schools, do you believe for one minute that what made our faculty excellent was its ability to prepare students for standardized tests? It was the furthest thing from our minds. The love of learning we tried to inspire and the kind of education we tried to impart had zero to do with standardized testing. It was antithetical to test prep. Indeed, it was the absence of this test prep preoccupation that allowed us to encourage critical thinking and creativity in our students. How sad that you now want to tether teacher evaluations to these pseudo-scientific tests. Have you actually spent any time visiting and observing our best suburban schools? I am happy to report, based on my observations, that there are Boston pilot schools that are doing an excellent job, though the testing regimen provides unneeded obstacles and burns up tons of time. By the way, give the well-regarded school that the President sends his kids to, and ask the staff if they evaluate teachers based on the test scores of students. I believe they will tell you they do not, because they do not believe that this is a valid way of evaluating teachers. I know that because I was curious and I did call.
Massachusetts Public Schools are #1 in the United States according to the Nations Report Card! Boston Public Schools is the BEST urban school district in the Nation according to the Council of the Great City Schools. So when I heard that "StudentsFirst" gave Massachusetts a D+ I had to consider the source, and this organization is not creditable. StudentsFirst CEO/President is Ed Reform Poverty Pimp Michelle Rhee. The Frontline Documentary of Michelle Rhee depicted her for the sociopathic, extreme narcissist that she is. Michelle Rhee didn’t start "StudentFirst" for the children, she started it for herself.
Look at Michelle Rhee's IRS 990's! I am disappointed in Russell E. Holmes a Democratic state representative from Mattapan, and Daniel B. Winslow a Republican state representative from Norfolk. Massachusetts. Did they think a Democratic and Republician, co-authoring this public relations piece for the StudentsFirst Organization would present a mainstream united front and a rational to remove the charter school cap in Massachusetts? It doesn’t, StudentsFirst is not credible. Before writing this piece Homes and Winslow didn’t do their homework. Perhaps they were hoodwinked! Knowing what they must know by now, if they continue to support StudentsFirst, they have a personal agenda and it isn’t in the best interest of Massachusetts’s children.
Let's acknowledge for one moment the real problems facing low-performing students: poverty, hunger, frequent moves from school to school, parents that don't place a value on education, no quiet workplace for homework, crime and violence in the neighborhood or in the home, and families that do not speak English at home.
How exactly is firing senior teachers and opening charter schools going to fix these problems?
Everyone knows charter schools only work because it is the parents who care the most about education who pull their kids out of public schools and enroll them in charters. Not only do charters siphon money from public schools, but charters siphon the best students with the most involved parents, making the public schools worse than ever. We can only fix the urban schools by creating a culture that values education...and that doesn't happen by destroying public education.