Top ten (plus?) read posts of 2019

As we close out the year, I did one of my periodic checks of the analytics to see what you all have been reading around here in 2019.
As always, far and away the most read is the front page, whatever it happens to be. I'm still stunned/amazed/impressed at how many of you simply swing by to see what is on the front page without coming in from anywhere in particular or to see anything in particular. Frankly, this is what pushes me to be faithful in posting (and makes me feel guilty when I am not!). I will continue to endeavor to make sure you have something to read when you come by!

So to the top ten actual posts:

1. It sometimes happens that someone about whom I have had reason to blog hits the news for some other reason, and the magic of Google will take people here. So it was when Rhode Island selected one of the finalists for Massachusetts Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education, Angélica Infante-Green, for their own new Commissioner of Education back in March. Google turned up my liveblog of her interview for the Massachusetts position in January of 2018, and Rhode Islanders came here to read what she'd said then. While the big news out of Rhode Island has been the state takeover of the Providence schools, she hasn't held back on other (in some cases, related) issues, including teacher diversity, racism, and the needs of English learners. One hopes she is heard on the need for accompanying resources. 

   My latest take (actually, Providence down their with them in my most recent model runs, but yes Woonsocket still last) pic.twitter.com/DRGME9d8MQ

   — Bruce Baker (@SchlFinance101) October 19, 2019



2. I am still angry about this, particularly as I see victory laps from his office, so let's not forget this post from October 3, calling out Governor Baker's blatant attempt to sink the Senate's passage of the Student Opportunity Act. It's the second most read post this year. Thank you to everyone who read it, everyone who shared it, everyone who got it, and everyone who remembers.
   This is why the Senate for certain and this year the House (and prior years, everyone in the House who fought for full implementation) gets credit from me, but short of the single "proof it happened" photo, you're not going to see me given Governor Baker credit for his signature. He tried to sink the bill. I will not forget that.


3. Demonstrating that those interview liveblogs just keep on giving, Tennessee appointed Penny Schwinn, who had been the third finalist for Massachusetts Commissioner, Education Commissioner in January, and her interview liveblog was the third most read blog post. Schwinn was told by lawmakers to slow down changes in Tennessee's accountability system; I am confused how this would work: "Schwinn has mentioned a 'best-of model' as one option, allowing schools to choose whether they want to be evaluated mainly on growth or on proficiency." Tennessee til now had emphasized student growth in their measures.
   This coming year, Tennessee will be among the states implementing a voucher program (do read Jennifer Berkshire on this!). Gosh, best wishes, Tennessee!


4. Back in February, the Worcester School Committee--finally--took up sex ed after twists and turns in which the only positive upshots were that Bill Shaner's coverage of it got an award and the entire field of candidates for the Worcester School Committee committed to comprehensive sex ed* in the new term. My post on reviewing the then-proposed Michigan model is here.
   
   *whatever that means, as I said on 508: A Show About Worcester back in May. I guess that is part of what we'll find out this coming year!


5. This was--hurrah, hurrah!--the year we finally, finally, finally got the foundation budget overhauled, and so the filing of Senator Sonia Chang-Díaz and Representative Aaron Vega and Mary Keefe's Promise Act is the "five golden rings" (da-da-da-dat) of this year's top ten. I have to be honest: the Legislature made me work for it this year, what with explaining how the Boston piece worked here, what the possible holdup was on negotiations around the bill (it looks like maybe I was kind of right?), and chasing down the pieces of the final Student Opportunity Act (see number 10). I know I learned a lot: I hope some of you did, too!


6. Bringing us back to the reason why I started the blog in the first place--you're never going to get everything in a newspaper article!--the sixth most read post was the liveblog of the Worcester Doherty building committee meeting at which they were to vote a preferred option and didn't. This was the one at which the Chandler Magnet community showed up and reminded folks that that wasn't empty space over on Chandler Street.
   Don't forget that lesson.


7. One of the things about which I was reminded this spring was this: Worcester, for all that we are sometimes insular, plays on a pretty big stage. When the second largest city in the state, with the third largest public school system, has sustained public concerns expressed regarding systemic bias that then impacts the negotiation of the superintendent's contract renewal, the state (not just DESE, though that's true) pays attention. The seventh most read post was just my running through the released student disciplinary data from the district and comparing it to the student disciplinary data that the state had posted from the district, following an earlier post.I did find myself for much of April attempting to at least share what was happening in Worcester.
   We shouldn't forget that, either.


8. The Boston Globe's new foundation-funded education shop did a long piece on the Boston Public Schools' bathrooms, which left me with decidedly mixed feelings. 


9. Thankfully, it isn't often that we have a crossover into public education of the ongoing fight for transparency and accountability around sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, but this year we did, and it hit Massachusetts. I am still very very concerned about how the Department did not, frankly, choose to handle this, from my seat as a mother and from a district policy level. There should have been an open call from the Department for anyone with any concerns or history to contact someone outside the Department; that should have gone out to every district with a request that it be shared through every district channel.
   DESE officials have a lot of implicit trust around children that comes with their positions, and I really don't think the Department did what it needed to in order to keep and maintain that trust. 


10. And then we had a bill! And I had all sorts of people tweeting me gifs of their waiting for me to read it!
    And lo and behold, it actually passed and was signed.

This did not make the top ten, but it came close, and it's making me laugh, because it may be that kind of a year again: you gotta make up snow days.
And seniors? You can't get out earlier than the 168th day of school (sorry!). 

And in 2020?
Locally, yes, I'll be blogging the Worcester School Committee and other meetings; as per past practice, I don't tweet from the floor, but blogging is my taking notes, so that you'll have.
At the state level, we have the Student Opportunity Act to implement (with those district spending plans due in April!). The Board of Ed is considering vocational schools admissions, we're still implementing the ESSA plan (will there be alterations?), and I, anyway, am still wondering about the vision of K-12 education coming out of Malden now.
And, nationally, we of course have a president to elect!

I feel very, very lucky to do what I do. Thanks for reading, but thanks also for asking questions, for pushing me on policies, and for all, named and otherwise, who answer my sometimes repetitive and often inconveniently timed questions.
I couldn't do it without you. 

For the coming year, I can't say it better than Molly Ivins:

So keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't forget to have fun doing it. Be outrageous... rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. 
And when you get through celebrating the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was!

Happy 2020! 

Trump on education: myth busting

I was among those not expecting a mention of education in the inaugural today, but there was one. Here's a look:

...an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge...

...part of a longer dystopia vision of the country.

Both halves of this statement are false.
The American education system is not "flush with cash" at all. There's a lot of good work on this, but I'd recommend beginning with the Shaker Institute's look at the myth of the inefficient education system. To wit:

...the typical presentations of data purporting to show the inefficiency of U.S. schools are so lacking in methodological rigor as to be of little if any value in our public debate or policymaking process.

And note, always, health care cost being included in education spending in the U.S. when this is not how it is done in other countries.

And further:

...per pupil spending in the U.S., which many proclaim to be relatively high based on simple comparisons, is actually rather in line with the spending of other OECD nations with similar GDP.

As for the "students deprived of all knowledge," again, there are a myriad of links, but you might start with this American Prospect piece on the myth of public school failure. A telling part of the conclusion:

...(this myth of failure) derives support from a political culture surviving the Reagan era--the suspicion of all public institutions and conviction that if public bureaucracy is responsible, performance must be deficient. The school failure myth also derives support from the nation's corporate leadership, anxious to find a scapegoat for high unemployment, racial division, and income inequality. Blaming the schools avoids confronting business deindustrialization strategies, failure to invest in high-wage jobs, and shortsighted trade policies. Faulting public education also excuses the business community's desire to reduce tax support of schools.

It appears that this is where we are.

I would take this chance to remind my readers why we need public education:

Wisdom, and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people...

That's as true now as it was in 1779.

Some great quotes on the use of district determined measures (DDMs)

...in this MassLive article; to wit:

"The research isn't there that shows you can tie assessments to a teacher's performance," said Jake Oliveira, president of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, which supports the amendment. "Our principals, teachers and superintendents find this to be onerous and unnecessary."

...which, bluntly, is true. There is no research to support the impact of an individual teacher on an individual student. 

Beyond the problem of the Commissioner's position being unsupported by research, there are a few other things I find problematic: this continues DESE's conflation of state requirements with what happens in schools and school districts. There are--thankfully--many, many things that go on in schools and districts that the state has nothing to do with. And teacher evaluation should not be under the purview of the state; that it is is a result of Race to the Top.
Also, "student learning" certainly isn't authentically evaluated by test scores, nor is it evaluated by the one (or small number) -off DDMs. Student evaluation should be an ongoing process within the classroom.

Business in education via politics

While it's the infuriating quote from Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson that is getting all of the attention--

“I’m not sure public schools understand that we’re their customer—that we, the business community, are your customer,” said Tillerson during the panel discussion. “What they don’t understand is they are producing a product at the end of that high school graduation.”
The Exxon CEO didn’t hesitate to extend his analogy. “Now is that product in a form that we, the customer, can use it? Or is it defective, and we’re not interested?” American schools, Tillerson declared, “have got to step up the performance level—or they’re basically turning out defective products that have no future. Unfortunately, the defective products are human beings. So it’s really serious. It’s tragic. But that’s where we find ourselves today.”

--I would recommend reading Fortune's article about how business got involved in the Common Core learning standards. It isn't as driven by the level of conspiracy-theorizing that has characterized some coverage, while also being honest about who is behind which parts.
It also concludes that, due to the level of implimentation, we're probably over most of the flips, which may have implications for the Massachusetts ballot question

My thanks

There will over the next few weeks be time enough for summings up and such, but tonight, I just want to say thank you for the past six years. I've immensely enjoyed serving on the Worcester School Committee. I've learned an enormous amount; I've gotten to work with great people, and we have a better school system than we did six years ago.

I was asked tonight if I'd change anything about it: no, I wouldn't. At the end of the day, the final person I have to live with is me. My comments, my votes, my speeches, have all been what I truly think and know and have researched. As Vice-President Biden said earlier this year:

What always confuses me about some folks I’ve worked with is why in God’s name would you want the job if you couldn’t say what you believed? I’m not—there’s nothing noble about this, but ask yourselves the question: Would you want a job that, in fact, every day you had to get up and you had to modulate what you said and believed?

Thank you, Worcester. It's been a great run, and I'm so very proud to have had this chance.

Note, incidently, that the Mass Association of School Committees meets this week; the blogging will pick up there tomorrow.

"...of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country"

It's the birthday of Worcester schoolmaster John Adams today. In his honor, here's a passage regarding public education from A Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law, which Adams wrote in 1765, in response to the Stamp Acts:

It is true, there has been among us a party for some years, consisting chiefly not of the descendants of the first settlers of this country, but of high churchmen and high statesmen imported since, who affect to censure this provision for the education of our youth as a needless expense, and an imposition upon the rich in favor of the poor, and as an institution productive of idleness and vain speculation among the people, whose time and attention, it is said, ought to be devoted to labor, and not to public affairs, or to examination into the conduct of their superiors. And certain officers of the crown, and certain other missionaries of ignorance, foppery, servility, and slavery, have been most inclined to countenance and increase the same party. Be it remembered, however, that liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood. And liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees for the people; and if the cause, the interest and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wantonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority that they themselves have deputed, and to constitute abler and better agents, attorneys, and trustees. And the preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks, is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country.

(Adams of course also wrote the passage at the bottom of the blog, which is from the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.)

Birthday of E.B. White

And let us all take inspiration from Fern's mother in Charlotte's Web:

“Fern was up at daylight, trying to rid the world of injustice. As a result, she now has a pig. A small one to be sure, but nevertheless a pig. It just shows what can happen if a person gets out of bed promptly.” 

RIP Maya Angelou

“Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.” 

― Maya Angelou

Happy Birthday, Horace Mann!

"Forts, arsenals, garrisons, armies, navies, are means of security and defence, which were invented in half-civilized times and in feudal or despotic countries; but schoolhouses are the republican line of fortifications, and if they are dismantled and dilapidated, ignorance and vice will pour in their legions through every breach."

The Common School Journal, Vol. III, No. 17 (1 September 1841)

The Secretary isn't the only one on Twitter

I'd forgotten...Globe reporter James Vaznis is, too.

Senator Warren on budgeting

possibly more on this later, but for now: 

"We have got to align our spending with our values" @SenWarren
— Tracy Novick (@cascadingwaters) April 25, 2014

Beware of the Leopard

In honor Douglas Adams' birthday today, Who-cester brings you the following quote, which, if you saw yesterday's joint committee meeting, was what I was thinking of when I made my comments about the process for Nelson Place. Arthur Dent has discovered that his house is to be destroyed for a bypass and goes to complain that he had received no notice of it: 

"But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."

"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."

"But the plans were on display ..."

"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."

"That's the display department."

"With a flashlight."

"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs."

"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."

Birthday of Abraham Lincoln today

"Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in. That every man may receive at least, a moderate education, and thereby be enabled to read the histories of his own and other countries, by which he may duly appreciate the value of our free institutions, appears to be an object of vital importance, even on this account alone, to say nothing of the advantages and satisfaction to be derived from all being able to read the scriptures and other works, both of a religious and moral nature, for themselves. For my part, I desire to see the time when education, and by its means, morality, sobriety, enterprise and industry, shall become much more general than at present, and should be gratified to have it in my power to contribute something to the advancement of any measure which might have a tendency to accelerate the happy period."
--March 9, 1832 First Political Announcement

Did you know the Pope had been a literature teacher?

His interview (published in English in America magazine) is going to make headlines for other reasons, but I liked the reflection of Pope Francis on teaching literature:

“It was a bit risky,” he answers. “I had to make sure that my students read El Cid. But the boys did not like it. They wanted to read Garcia Lorca. Then I decided that they would study El Cid at home and that in class I would teach the authors the boys liked the most. Of course, young people wanted to read more ‘racy’ literary works, like the contemporary La Casada Infiel or classics like La Celestina, by Fernando de Rojas. But by reading these things they acquired a taste in literature, poetry, and we went on to other authors. And that was for me a great experience. I completed the program, but in an unstructured way—that is, not ordered according to what we expected in the beginning, but in an order that came naturally by reading these authors. And this mode befitted me: I did not like to have a rigid schedule, but rather I liked to know where we had to go with the readings, with a rough sense of where we were headed."

 Like many (most?) Jesuits, Pope Francis taught prior to his ordination as a priest; in 1964 and 1965, he taught literature and psychology at the Colegio de la Inmaculada and at the Colegio del Salvador.

And for my friends to the east

...if you're stuck getting most of your education coverage from the Boston Globe, oh, you will want to read this one. 

Every SINGLE thing?

Tangential, as the point of the article is not this, but I gasped aloud this morning when I got to the end of this comment in an article on extended school years:

“It is true that we have an unfair society, and it is true that kids who are coming from the poorer backgrounds and whose parents don’t do a lot of reading are losing reading skills over the summer,” said Peter Gray, research professor of psychology at Boston College. “But let’s look at other solutions.” He added, “Whatever job we give to the school system, they ruin it.”

(emphasis added)
I will resist the temptation to toss some psychology into why we'd have a professor of psychology making such a generalization, but...really, Professor Gray? Every single thing? Ever?

And regarding summer learning loss, be sure to read Alfie Kohn on just what it is we're losing.

Comments on the WPS budget before the Council

Monfredo: suggests a working group of Council and School Committee
mention of Medicaid, grant decision
split of new revenue (it was a 50/50 split in the 90's)
"shape the economic future of our city"
Rob Cohane, co-chair of CPPAC (who's a South High grad, class of 1988)
"over 450 petition signers" asking for 3% over the state mandated foundation requirement
"what we think the priorities of Worcester should be"
"by at least 3% above"
since 1988 the city has consistently contributed less than 1% above the minimum
statewide average is 14%; urban districts is 3% in spending

Notes on Stand for Children ballot measure: H3883

These are my notes from 10 am until I left at 1; there were still people remaining to testify when I left. Apologies for not getting more names; if you've got them, please send them along. As per usual, editorial italics are mine.

I have no idea what this means

The big news here is that Bloomberg is now going after teacher tenure in the city entirely (speaking as a former teacher for whom the First Amendment was not going to be enough, yes, I see the value of tenure!), but the quote from the NYC Chancellor of Ed on whistleblowing is mystifying:

“I’m a person who wants to make sure we have a system that is honest, which it is,” he said. “And so there’s no public call where I want you to out your principal, I want you to out your assistant principal. I want to be very clear about that. It’s up to all of us to make sure that any cheating that’s taken place at any level, that we know about it because we will follow up.”

The best I can do is you don't need to call them because they're going to...magically, somehow...know? that something is wrong, and they'll fix it.
How...novel.

Happy Independence Day

In honor of America's Independence Day, I give you a Worcester schoolteacher*:

My best wishes, in the joys, and festivities, and the solemn services of that day on which will be completed the fiftieth year from its birth, of the independence of the United States: a memorable epoch in the annals of the human race, destined in future history to form the brightest or the blackest page, according to the use or the abuse of those political institutions by which they shall, in time to come, be shaped by the human mind.

*John Adams, better known as a contributor to the Declaration of Independence and second President of the United States. He also was certain that the United States ought to celebrate on July 2, when the document was actually signed, and so, it is said, refused to attend celebrations on July 4.