Comments for Did Education Secretary Arne Duncan Really Leave Chicago Schools a Mess? at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 12 out of 12 comments http://www.cepr.net Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:23:39 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/did-education-secretary-arne-duncan-really-leave-chicago-schools-a-mess#comment-18821 The problem is not "bad schools"; it's bad students. - tee jarado Thu, 13 Sep 2012 05:56:54 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/did-education-secretary-arne-duncan-really-leave-chicago-schools-a-mess#comment-18807 emanuel is egotistical & not very intelligent. when he was white house chief of staff, he consistently proposed very conservative ideas which obama lapped up like a thirsty puppy. then he made 6.6 million working for a bank. now he becomes mayor & wants schools to have 40 kids per classroom & to teach to the test. his own kids go to a toney private school. rahm emanuel is somewhat like his idol al capone. - mel in oregon Wed, 12 Sep 2012 11:45:10 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/did-education-secretary-arne-duncan-really-leave-chicago-schools-a-mess#comment-18793 Sorry, liberal, I didn't mean to mislead you that no testing has validity. Teachers complain continually about how the standardized tests are implemented and evaluated. - fuller schmidt Wed, 12 Sep 2012 07:29:13 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/did-education-secretary-arne-duncan-really-leave-chicago-schools-a-mess#comment-18776 [b]fuller schmidt[/b] wrote, [quote]Does anyone know a teacher that thinks standardized testing has any validity?[/quote] Of course they have validity. There's nothing wrong with standardized tests [i]per se[/i]. The problem is with their role, where they're used for teacher and school evaluation, and the incentives that creates (teaching to the test, and teacher/school-directed cheating). - liberal Wed, 12 Sep 2012 03:06:52 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/did-education-secretary-arne-duncan-really-leave-chicago-schools-a-mess#comment-18774 Unfortunately the Big Lie works, and very few know the facts of recent years regarding education test scores. Kevin Drum, quoted in the Daily Howler, corrects the misimpression, writing about the state of the art educational testing, the NAEP's TUDA: "Not every big city participates in TUDA, but most of the biggest have participated since 2003, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, DC, Houston, Los Angeles, and New York. And these results are consistent with plenty of other NAEP results: poor and minority kids are still doing a lot worse than middle-class and non-minority kids, but they are making progress. ... Given the usual NAEP rule of thumb that ten points is equal to one grade level, these urban kids have improved their math and reading performance by anywhere from half a grade level to a full grade level in just eight years. "There are plenty of nits to pick with data like this, and I've picked some of them in the past. Still, why is it that progress like this so rarely gets reported? ..." http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2011/12/naep-versus-newt-kevin-drum-gets-it.html - fairleft Wed, 12 Sep 2012 00:45:55 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/did-education-secretary-arne-duncan-really-leave-chicago-schools-a-mess#comment-18771 [b]William Berkson[/b] wrote, [quote]Briefly, the evidence is that the variation in a class's progress year to year due to non-teacher factors is much greater than the teacher factors.[/quote] Yeah, the science behind using testing to reward teachers is just terrible and completely lacking. - liberal Tue, 11 Sep 2012 10:45:21 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/did-education-secretary-arne-duncan-really-leave-chicago-schools-a-mess#comment-18770 I would like to see an experiment where students from a highly rated suburban school were bussed to a "failing" inner city school and vice versa. Does anyone think the performance of the students would be reversed? Yet the BOE's approach to "turning the school around" is to move new faculty, staff, and administrators into the same crumbling building to serve the same underprivileged and abused students. Can anyone really believe this will work? As long as rich kids are in one classroom and poor kids in another nothing will change. - Mitch Beales Tue, 11 Sep 2012 09:36:43 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/did-education-secretary-arne-duncan-really-leave-chicago-schools-a-mess#comment-18769 Rahm is a money-grubber- he gets his cut from the school privatizing industry for sticking with the standardized testing scam. Does anyone know a teacher that thinks standardized testing has any validity? - fuller schmidt Tue, 11 Sep 2012 09:24:17 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/did-education-secretary-arne-duncan-really-leave-chicago-schools-a-mess#comment-18768 That 80% of the kids in Chicago schools are eligible for free or reduced price lunches is probably the most important factor. It would be nice if Rahm spent more time on issues like jobs, wage increases, affordable housing and the like, instead of expecting teachers to overcome child poverty all by themselves. - PeonInChief Tue, 11 Sep 2012 08:31:23 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/did-education-secretary-arne-duncan-really-leave-chicago-schools-a-mess#comment-18767 The key issue that the press is not reporting on is the issue of firing teachers based on whether their teachers progress from year to year on standardized tests. Briefly, the evidence is that the variation in a class's progress year to year due to non-teacher factors is much greater than the teacher factors. So teachers end up being fired arbitrarily for teaching more poor, special needs or English language learners, among other things. Diane Ravitch has links to the research in a post on her blog today: http://dianeravitch.net/2012/09/11/value-added-nonsense/ - William Berkson Tue, 11 Sep 2012 08:26:14 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/did-education-secretary-arne-duncan-really-leave-chicago-schools-a-mess#comment-18766 Dean is right and 95% of the people who write and speak about this issue start from the unjustified assumption that somehow teachers and school administrators can overcome the disadvantages of a low-income environment. If that assumption were correct poor performance would occur as often in suburban and high-income areas as in inner cities and rural areas. On the whole, school "reform" is really aimed at privatizing schools and breaking unions, not building up public schools; it is something that would almost certainly increase overall economic and societal inequality. - skeptonomist Tue, 11 Sep 2012 04:35:28 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/did-education-secretary-arne-duncan-really-leave-chicago-schools-a-mess#comment-18764 Once again leaders (and parents) blame teachers for the failings of education administrators. The downward spiral of american education intensifies as administrators and patents cling ever more tightly to the corporate governance model, which we all know benefits only the top administrators. - David Tue, 11 Sep 2012 02:33:30 +0100