All I Ask is Consistency

Things that drive me mad:

At the end of the term, APOLO students have made great strides, though test scores might not always reflect it. Von’s explanation provided valuable context for this reality. For students who go to APOLO in grades 11 or 12—or at age 19 or 20—on-time graduation might not be feasible, and the road ahead might be longer, affecting the school’s performance data.

Additionally, with a small student body (maximum 75 students), each student’s performance significantly affects the school’s annual performance numbers.

These are sound, valid reasons why test scores might not be representative of the actual performance of a school.

Rewind three years, to when the Freedom Foundation had their brief flirtation with school report cards:

These School Report Cards offer overall ratings on a scale of zero to 10, trend analysis, demographic information, and statewide rankings for 780 public middle schools and high schools. Each Report Card takes WASL data and makes it understandable to the public. Comparison features allow parents to see how their school’s performance stacks up against other schools in the state.

“The statewide ranking system can be controversial, but it is priceless in propelling effective reform,” said Peter Cowley, developer of the School Report Card model at the Vancouver, B.C.-based Fraser Institute. Fraser has 10 years of experience producing these report cards across Canada and tracking the reform they produce.

If test scores are going to count for the brick-and-mortar schools, but not really count for the blended/on-line/alternative programs, remind me again of who is guilty of the soft bigotry of low expectations?

Read more here, if any.

Trent England Said Something Silly Again

Emphasis his:

I remember, as a kid, looking with my dad at a new school being built in our town. My dad knows construction; that's what he does. And he would point out the different components of the new building--the windows, the roofing, the glass blocks--that were the absolute most expensive materials available.

There are large school construction projects going on all around me, and this notion that we're going to the taxpayers and gouging them for Taj Maschools is silly on the face of it. There are committees made of people in the community, an elected school board to oversee the project, and construction bonds still have to pass with a 60% supermajority to become a reality. If you're looking for ways to save money, you're looking in the wrong place.

Read more here, if any.

Yet More Evidence That Online Schools Aren't All That Great

Courtesy of Education Week, with coverage of some online schools not getting the job done in Colorado.

Read more here, if any.

Trent England: I don't care if online schools aren't effective, it's all about breaking the unions

From the Freedom Foundations email newsletter:

As both a parent and a taxpayer, I'm excited about the potential for online education. The Freedom Foundation's iLearn Project advances online learning because of its promise to help students, but also because it will help break down union control over schools and school districts. Information technology makes it easier to measure actual student learning, makes seat time and location less important, and can allow teachers to compete worldwide. iLearn is a key to unlocking the union's control over Washington schools.

Yet more explicit messaging from the Freedom Foundation that it doesn't matter how generally poor the online schools are, it's all about trying to find a way to break the WEA.

If the good Mr. England had to choose between sending his kids to a bad charter or a good public school that happened to have union employees, one wonders which option he'd take.

Read more here, if any.

How Did the On-Line Schools Do This Year?

Long-time readers have seen a lot from me about on-line schools here in Washington State, including a comparison of test scores that I did last fall. The whole series can be found here.

What's changed in the last year? Not much. If anything, on-line schools are doing worse than ever when compared to their brick and mortar counterparts. You can see a spreadsheet that I made here; the general upshot is:

• Out of 111 tested areas, on-line schools were better than the state average 12 times.
  
• On-line highschools fared extremely poorly--in 29 attempts, they didn't beat the state average a single time. It's the same for 5th grade (0 for 12).
  
• The brightest spots were 6th grade math (2 school out of 5 beat the state average) and the third grade tests (3 of 8).

In the interim since I worked on this year's spreadsheet and got around to finally putting it up on the blog I also received the September edition of the Freedom Foundation's Living Liberty newsletter. Within there's a column from their lead education analyst Diana Moore where she once again overstates the case for on-line schools. For example:

Like the mythical king Sisyphus, reformers seemed doomed to roll a heavy rock up a hill for eternity. Yet online learning might just be the lever to heave that rock to the other side.

That lever was better than the existing system about 11% of the time. In some cases those lever schools had scores less than half those of the state average. On-line schools aren't excelling.

The groundswell of online learning is growing. If this continues at the same pace, it will be hard for status quo protectors to stop.

Not really--you'll just have to look at the results and say, "Wow, those schools have problems."

With online learning, we have the historic ability to reclaim the mission of public education from the statists and interest groups who have perverted it. It is possible to offer access to a world class education to every child. Every child.

And this is when I get pissy. Those statists that Diana slags on here are beating the online schools regularly and thoroughly. This call that she makes here, to some bygone era where learning was somehow better, doesn't match up with the data owned by the schools that she's pushing. For certain kids online education may well be a better option, but instead of focusing on the micro aspect she tries to take it into a macro argument about the school system in general, and she's a lesser person for it. We should have online programs, but let's make sure the conversation about them stays honest. What I get thrown back at me fairly regularly is "But Ryan, the mission of the on-line schools is different!", and that may well be true, but consider--if I made that argument about a public school like Wellpinit, or a program from downtown Seattle, Spokane, or Tacoma, if I showed you a "failing" public school and said to you "But those kids are different!", do you think that those in the ed reform movement would grant the point or accuse me of embracing the soft bigotry of low expectations and giving up on kids? When the data is this overwhelming you have to ask yourself what the Freedom Foundation gets out of it, and they've made that clear: the important thing is to screw the WEA. This isn't about freedom, the free market, or conservative principles--it's about the agenda, and that agenda has absolutely nothing to do with students.

A new year begins. Online schools have been poor for two consecutive years. Is there any reason to believe that will change?

Read more here, if any.

If This Meets Your Definition of "It's Working!", Then We Define Working in Completely Different Ways

So the Freedom Foundation has an interview posted that they did with a teacher over in Pennsylvania who teachers on-line kindergarten. No, seriously--kindergarten over the computer. This is a thing.

It's a nice enough interview, sure, but is the program that houses this on-line kindergarten worth a damn? Judging by the test scores, not so much: in 20 tested areas, they were below the state average every single time.

If this is the reinvention of public education, we're all screwed.

Read more here, if any.

The Freedom Foundation Gets Honest

From this month's Freedom Foundation newsletter:

"Finally, while online programs are required to have state certified teachers, they are not required to hire unionized teachers. Some do, but others don't. This is a development that we hope to encourage."

See? It doesn't matter that on-line schools are poor in general; if it's a way to throw barbs at the WEA, then it's something to support.

That's your Freedom Foundation--wasting tax dollars is OK when it's waste that we support.

Read more here, if any.

Dear Trent England

Here's Brad Shannon using left-of-center.

Here's two examples of the phrase left leaning.

Here's one where he calls the National Education Association left-leaning.

Google gives 1,850,000 results for the phrase "hard left" and 4,680,000 for "hard right".

Do you still want to stick with "imbalance in the political monikers employed by Shannon and the Olympian"?

Read more here, if any.

I Was Kindly Invited to the Freedom Foundation Rally

So this Wednesday the Evergreen Freedom Foundation is holding a rally in support of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. The email announcement brings the funny:

This rally is not an attack on the individual public employees who are our friends, neighbors and fellow taxpayers. It is about the unhealthy relationship between union leaders and state lawmakers that is forcing our state into bankruptcy.

Maybe they missed the announcement about the DIME PAC, two years ago, when a big labor bill was killed under the dumbest of circumstances because Governor Gregoire and Speaker Chopp didn't want to bring it forward. That's old news, I suppose, but this notion that labor gets what they want to the exclusion of every other interest in Olympia is rather absurd.

We condemn the labor policies where the State has given unbalanced power to one special interest group.

It was awesome when I totally bounced in and imposed the contract I wanted on the management team. High five!

We need to see courageous leadership regarding this issue from our elected officials now, before the situation becomes much worse and there is a meltdown similar to what is currently taking place in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin is going through all of this over about $100,000,000; our hole is 50 times that. What's causing this "meltdown" is Governor Walker's attack on organized labor, which is exactly what you're proposing a rally in support of. Good work, guys.

Make signs – We need to have signs that spread our message. Please avoid any hateful or harmful language that will misconstrue the positive steps we are trying to take.

Examples:

Oh, this'll be good.

Taxpayers treated like 2nd class citizens Remember up above, when we said to remember that union members were also tax payers? Just kidding!

Stop leeching, start teaching Teachers have lost three days of pay because of the Learning Improvement Days going away, they're about to lose three more days of pay when the calendar reduction goes through for next year, the salary schedule freeze is finally going through so that there will be no more raises, and the state might save millions on the back of National Board Certified teachers by not giving them their promised bonuses. You're right, F those guys.

Even FDR opposed public unions Read the quote a little closer. He specifically mentions collective bargaining, which is an element of unionism but not the entire picture. And really, the EFF is going to praise Roosevelt?

Our kids can't afford your pensions anymore Therefore, we should show our kids that contracts mean nothing by ripping them up. Trying to make something as complex as pension policy fit on a sign is a fool's errand.

Hey public unions: You can't bully your way into a pay raise! Hey, idiot think tank: there's a long, long, long list of unions around this state that have made concessions in the last year. The ones in Wisconsin are, too.

I can barely afford my rent, but my taxes are going up to pay for your pension! And if you want your sign to be really good, cite the bill that would do this!

I look forward to seeing the crowds.

Read more here, if any.