NCATE: An Early Study in Accreditation and Appeasement

There is post by Dan Butin at Education Policy Blog that takes issue with the ongoing right-wing war against the educational goals of social justice and participatory democracy. Here is a clip:

A recent article in Education Next continues the attack on “social justice” in schools of education. Laurie Moses Hines, an assistant professor of education at Kent State University, Trumbull (in Cultural Foundations, of all areas, for goodness sake), published “Return of the Thought Police” that made the basic argument that “The screening of prospective teachers for maladjustment 50 years ago and the dispositions assessments going on today have remarkable similarities.” Both, she argues, are useless and politically regressive.

Oh, it is just all too easy to pick on teacher education programs and dispositions. Us, bad, bad, indoctrinators.

I am not going to argue about the historical data; for all I know she is right. What I deeply, deeply reject and resent is that she takes a situation of dire educational consequence—the drastic education gap across racial, ethnic, SES, and immigrant status categories—and slams the easy targets of educators trying to figure out how best to solve the dilemma. Moreover, she does this in an extremely sloppy manner—full of errors and misunderstandings—all, it appears, to get embraced by the right type of crowd.

Let me throw out the most blatant problems.

The first is that she just cherry picks the easy fruit, the issues that have gotten oh so much attention:
1. A prospective teacher expelled because he advocated corporal punishment (such as spanking) in his philosophy of education paper
2. Incidents at Brooklyn College, which included being shown Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 9/11 and an occasion where students in a class on language and literacy development told to accept that “white English” is the “oppressors’ language”
3. A prospective teacher asked to attend a “sensitivity training” session because he wrote, among other things, that there was no such thing as “male privilege”

None of these occurrences, I should be clear, are defensible on the part of the faculty. Students should not be graded on whether they correctly parrot back the professors’ ideology.

But exactly because she picks the easy fruit allows her to glide over the big picture, which is that there is no data that such occurrences actually happen on any scale in higher education. Pennsylvania was the only state that actually held hearings on Horowitz’s claims of students being indoctrinated. The panel, after a year, concluded that there was absolutely no basis upon which to make such egregious claims. As the Chronicle reported, “While the draft report says the panel was urged to endorse a statewide policy guaranteeing students' rights, it says the committee felt such a step was "unnecessary" because violations of students' academic freedom "are rare."”

The second, related to the first, is that in her haste to grab the easy fruit, she misses the issue. Her use of NCATE as an example is telling. She states that “social justice” was “Within the list of [NCATE] dispositions” and then takes a swipe at Arthur Wise by stating that “he maintains that social justice was never a required disposition.”

Oh, if only she would read. NCATE mentioned social justice as one example among many in the glossary section that defines terminology. Social justice was never, ever, ever, a disposition that NCATE “tested” for.

Dan's use of the past tense "mentioned" is exactly correct, for what has happened is that NCATE has become an early case study in the use of federal intimidation to shape university programs in the image of political ideology. In this case, it is ED that accredits the accreditors, and so it through the accreditors that ED will enforce its 19th Century social agenda.

NCATE, in fact, has folded in a spineless acquiescence to the anti-political-correctness political correctors. From the Chronicle of Higher Ed (12/16/05):

Last month, in the midst of the controversy, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education sent a bulletin to the 614 programs it accredits, saying that education schools should not evaluate students' attitudes, but rather assess their dispositions based on "observable behavior in the classroom." It also said it does "not expect or require institutions to attend to any particular political or social ideologies.

Beliefs, values, philosophy, or ethical commitments don’t matter anymore unless we observe them after they are allowed to do damage in the classroom? If a teacher can teach math, it does not matter if she is an avowed skinhead, fascist, or a dangerous liberal?

And then from the Chronicle, 6/16/06:

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education won a key endorsement last week in its quest for continued federal approval of its accrediting power after announcing that it would drop controversial language about social justice from its accrediting standards for teacher-preparation programs.

The council, which is the nation's largest teacher-education accrediting group, has come under fire from conservative activists for the wording of a glossary appendix to standards for candidates in education programs.

NCATE has, then, just attempted to acknowledge the meaninglessness of a foundational element of what constitutes the foundations of education--the inclusive and factual intellectual and social history, and the advocacy for education for democracy and social justice. Sure does seem to open the door for TEAC or another accrediting body that is not afraid to take a stand for an inclusive, multicultural democracy.

By the way, did you ever wonder how it happened in Germany? This offers a perfect contemporary example of the universities taking the lead role of appeasor for an increasingly-bold rightwing fanaticism.

Oligarchs Go After NCATE and TEAC

A new paper by neolib sludge tank hack, Edward Crowe, is now out from the Center for American Regress Progress. Funded by Bill Gates, it is another brick in the corporate wall that is being built to contain and control teaching, schools, and the teachers in the schools who teach teachers.  In order to make room for this new nationalized test-based dystopia envisioned by the braintrust that Gates built, however, the path needs to cleared of the obstructive independent accrediting bodies that have been responsible for widespread standardization and some would say improvement of teacher ed programs.  Apparently, it's not nearly standard enough for the oligarchs.  From Dr. Crowe's paper:

No compelling evidence suggests that program accreditation by NCATE or TEAC leads to (or takes account of) positive academic outcomes for students taught by graduates of accredited programs. In fact, the national accreditors for teacher education do not use empirical data on teaching and learning outcomes to make judgments about program quality. Nor is there any reason to believe that teachers who complete an accredited preparation program are more likely to demonstrate high-quality classroom teaching performance than those trained elsewhere (p. 6).

Now if NCATE follows its past pattern, it will immediately capitulate without an argument and get with the Gates/Broad program.  Moral courage is not NCATE's strong suit, as clearly demonstrated in the face of racist concerns with NCATE's wording on social justice.  Or shall I say past wording.  A little push and a Gates check could definitely have the desired results. 

But here below is the finer example of cheap smear and propaganda from this kind of charlatan Gates-boy bullshit masquerading as academic writing:

Published program pass rates were supposed to be the critical element in the federal reporting system. They were intended to shine a light on programs whose graduates were not well-enough prepared to pass a minimum competency test to become teachers. But shortly after the report card structure was established, a significant number of institutions and state agencies joined with the teacher education professional associations—the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, or AACTE, as well as NCATE—to work out a way to beat the reporting system. The trick they devised was requiring teacher candidates to pass all required teacher tests before being allowed to graduate. This allows programs to report 100 percent pass rates on the teacher tests. They do not have to disclose the percentage of candidates who failed one or more tests (p. 9).

I don't know about you, but it sounds like Dr. Crowe would rather know how many students failed the test the first time than how many students in the end successfully met the requirements of the test.  I wonder if these nitwits would judge law schools by how many of their graduates failed the bar exam the first time.  To follow the analogy to its Wonderland conclusion, every state would have the same bar exam to go along, we may presume, with the same set of laws, and the same highly trained judges and juries to render decisions.  The fact that the Borg is going out of their way to demonize and marginalize the professional accrediting agencies (NCATE and TEAC) says everything about the depth of the efforts to control not only what is taught in the classroom but, now, what is taught to the teachers who teach in the classrooms. 

In the brave new world of education from the Oligarchs, tests will determine what gets taught in teacher preparation programs and what is taught in K-12.  It is the most foolproof way to control knowledge, knowledge creation, and knowledge dissemination.  Cornering the market, you might say.

Western Governors University's Path to Becoming a Teacher in NJ

The Christmas gift that keeps on giving. Teaching jobs abound in New Jersey.

Western Governors University is recruiting heavily for part time adjuncts in New Jersey to stay in their pajamas and conduct on line courses for NCATE approved "evaluations." If you are looking for a job as a data evaluator, with no benefits, no job security and no office, then this is for you.

Now that they are dismantling teacher unions and public schools, it's a free for all. Just sign up, pay some money, take some on line courses and you are sure to be an 
"effective" teacher. Just follow the script. You'll do fine.

With experienced educators being fired or fleeing to save their souls, the demand is huge for anyone interested in working in public schools that have been taken over by corporations, i.e., Common Core via PARCC, Pearson and Achieve 3000.

No need to study the history or philosophy of education, curriculum methodology, psychology or subject content, it's as easy as clicking a few buttons.

NCATE Accreditation

WGU is the first exclusively online university to receive NCATE accreditation for its degree programs that lead to teacher licensure, a testament to the fact that WGU graduates "have the knowledge and skills to be effective in helping all students learn."

Read more about our NCATE accreditation

Change Lives with an OnlineTeaching Degree Program

WGU offers challenging online teaching degree programs for both current and aspiring teachers. Because WGU is a nonprofit, online university founded and supported by the governors of 19 U.S. states, you'll benefit from both superior online degree programs and lower tuition.

WGU’s programs are designed to produce highly competent teachers because our degrees are aligned specifically with state standards throughout the country.

Relay School of Education: The New Test U School of Penal Pedagogy for the Poor

re lay: an electromagnetic device for remote or automatic control that is actuated by variation in conditions of an electric circuit and that operates in turn other devices (as switches) in the same or a different circuit.

If you consider it either ridiculous, dangerous, unethical, unscientific, or simply stupid to fire and hire teachers based on gains or losses among invalid and non-reliable student test scores, you ain't seen nothin' yet.  Last Fall when the Oligarchs convened the leaders of the lonely hearts club of teacher accreditation outfits known as NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education) to declare that teacher education needed to "incubate a whole new form of teacher education," those of us familiar with NCATE's fealty to the Business Roundtable knew something big was in the warmer.

Now we know.  The first hatchling is christenend the Relay School of Education, a creation of political hack, David Steiner, who has created the neo-eugenics corporate model for training educational technicians to program poor children so that they can pass tests.   Bloomberg and Tisch, in turn, made Steiner New York's ED Commissioner, whose office just recently voted unanimously to approve the new school in a market already saturated by other programs.

What makes Relay (think "remote or automatic control") a uniquely monstrous offspring of teacher education is that degrees are only awarded to those candidates whose student test scores show a year's worth of gains during the year that candidates are learning to teach on poor people's children.  Those who get their degrees based on student test scores, then, go into schools with the unquestioning acceptance of test scores as the only reason for schools or teachers to exist.  Flip the switch!

This new model was designed with the KIPP/TFA ethos of anti-cultural imperialism by white elites clearly in mind.  In fact, KIPP co-founder, David Levin, is one of the three founders of this new Test U, and many of the 200 candidates getting underway this coming Fall will be Wendy Kopp's carefully-recruited Ivy League missionaries.

So where does NCATE play a role in this fledgling corporation? From Elizabeth Green, who is quickly becoming the Oligarchs' go-to-girl to get their stories into print:

Teacher U [Relay School of Education] has received praise at the national level, including from a group that has defended traditional schools of education in the past: the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. James Cibulka, the president of NCATE, submitted a letter to the Regents endorsing the Teacher U team’s application, citing a recent report by NCATE that cited Teacher U as an “exemplar” of needed efforts to “turn teacher education in the United States ‘upside down.’”

Yes, yes, upside down.  No evaluators sent out yet, but Cibulka knows quality before he sees it, apparently.  So top-heavy with cash, how could they fail to capsize teacher education!  In fact, one of the other three founders of Test U, aka Relay School of Education, is none other than hedge fund superstar, Larry "L-Train" Robbins.

It's worth recalling that everyone was not out to lunch on the eminent explosion of the bulging home mortgage bubble in 2008, leaving Wall Street in shambles and the hedge funders and other casino capitalist rats swimming for their offshore bank accounts.  Larry "L-Train" Robbins was one of those seers from the inside, who had the uncanny ability to make money when everyone else was taking a hit.

When a Fortune Magazine interviewer in late 2007 asked L-Train how his Glenview Capital hedge fund was up 20 percent for the year when some other funds were getting creamed, part of his answer offered this clue:

  . . . . Second, we've maintained a short position in mortgages since late 2006. That gave us a hedge against liquidity contraction and it gave us early and valuable insights into the consumer lending market and its deteriorating conditions. 

Now we know the Fed could not have known was was going on because Greenspan said so, right?, or certainly not the media or anyone who read Fortune Magazine in 2007, but the L-Train had some remarkable insight, you might say. With quality leadership by such civic-minded swine, how can Test U fail?

By the time David Steiner has completed his mission in Albany, Relay will likely have an endowed chair waiting for him.  Will they call it the Frederick Winslow Taylor Endowed Chair of Educational Efficiency?  Sounds good, doesn't it?

NCATE "to incubate a whole new form of teacher education"

During the Bush/Spellings years, Spellings exercised old-fashioned intimidation against accrediting agencies, using threats to withdraw federal funding and federal recognition from accreditors unwilling to line up behind the antiquarian notions of the scary clown in charge of the Spellings Commission, Charles Miller.  None of her threats, however, brought the desired results of turning colleges into the same kind of useless corporate data mines that have stripped K-12 schools of their educative potential.

With hundreds of billions in education dollars at stake each year,  and with the deliriously loony mantra broadcast constantly that the U. S. is going to educate itself out of the economic meltdown that education had no part in creating, the educational testing complex has quickly shifted its strategy away from empty threats.  They have taken the inside track that clearly expresses the strategy of, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em--and then beat 'em.

 One of the remaining stumbling blocks to the total corporate takeover of K-12 has been the university teacher education programs that have often stubbornly clung to scholarship, best practices, humane values, and a long-standing democratic ethos in the face of tremendous pressure from the education industrial complex. This honing and homing in by technocrats and testocrats comes in the form of a new agenda shaped by "experts" who have put into place the desires of the oligarchs as expressed through their corporate foundation hives.  

In conjunction with NCATE, who has claimed its place at the feeding trough, this morning Arne Duncan is offering the platitudes about this new "incubation" process.  It will be interesting to see how fast he can place his cuckoo eggs into university (and other) nests around the country to produce data-driven, anti-cultural prison guards that cannot be distinguished from the glassy-eyed Ivy League drones from Teach for America:  Cheap, replaceable, compliant, patronizing, positivized, and ignorant of history, theory, and cognition.

But maybe I'm wrong.  Here is the announcement, and we will know something different by lunch:

Education Leaders, Policymakers, and Critics of Teacher Education
Call For Teacher Education to be Turned “Upside Down”

NCATE Will Release Report on Preparing Effective Educators and
Announce States that Have Agreed To Implement Recommendations

WASHINGTON – On Nov. 16, 2010, a national expert panel will call for teacher education to be “turned upside down” by revamping programs to prioritize clinical practice and partnerships with school districts. The sweeping changes will pave the way for more effective training that better addresses student needs and shifts accountability closer to the classroom.

The panel, comprising national education leaders, policymakers, education school deans, and vocal critics of teacher preparation will set out a bold new direction for how we deliver, monitor, evaluate, oversee, and staff clinically based preparation to incubate a whole new form of teacher education. Its report, Transforming Teacher Education through Clinical Practice: A National Strategy to Prepare Effective Teachers, will offer recommendations focused on strengthening candidate selection and placement; revamping curricula, incentives, and staffing; strengthening partnerships; and expanding the knowledge base. At the briefing, NCATE also will announce several states that have agreed to implement the new agenda.

Participants in the event will include:
The Honorable Arne Duncan, Secretary, United States Department of Education 
James G. Cibulka, President, NCATE 
Nancy Zimpher, Chancellor, State University of New York and panel co-chair
Dwight Jones, Commissioner of Education, Colorado Department of Education and panel co-chair 
Peter McWalters, Program Director, CCSSO
Donna Wiseman, Dean, College of Education, University of Maryland and Chair-Elect, American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education
Jesse Solomon, Executive Director, Boston Teacher Residency
Kathy Wiebke, National Board Certified Teacher, Executive Director, K-12 Center, Northern Arizona University 
Rebecca S. Pringle, Secretary-Treasurer, National Education Association
Christopher Steinhauser, Superintendent, Long Beach Unified Public Schools
Arthur Levine, President, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
Frederick Hess, Resident Scholar and Director of Education Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute

LISTEN ONLY CONFERENCE CALL: 1-888-293-6979
Conference ID: 6596436

Test Prep U. Will Run U of Memphis Program for Segregated Teacher Preparation

From the Memphis Corporate Appeal:

. . . .The program is scheduled to start next fall in classes taught by Relay Graduate School of Education, a New York nonprofit organization that offers master’s degrees to meet “today’s urgent demand for effective teachers,” according to its website.

Relay was founded by a group of charter schools and is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Carnegie Corp. and others. Neither The New Teacher Project nor Relay would respond to a reporter’s questions. . . .

Well, that's part of the story.  Per usual, Gates' reporter on the scene, Jane Roberts, leaves out a few things about Relay.  Here is some of the rest of the story by Carol Burris, and here is my original post from 2011 on Relay's teacher prep for segregated corporate reform schools:

re lay: an electromagnetic device for remote or automatic control that is actuated by variation in conditions of an electric circuit and that operates in turn other devices (as switches) in the same or a different circuit.

If you consider it either ridiculous, dangerous, unethical, unscientific, or simply stupid to fire and hire teachers based on gains or losses among invalid and non-reliable student test scores, you ain't seen nothin' yet.  Last Fall when the Oligarchs convened the leaders of the lonely hearts club of teacher accreditation outfits known as NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education) to declare that teacher education needed to "incubate a whole new form of teacher education," those of us familiar with NCATE's fealty to the Business Roundtable knew something big was in the warmer. 

Now we know.  The first hatchling is christenend the Relay School of Education, a creation of political hack, David Steiner, who has created the neo-eugenics corporate model for training educational technicians to program poor children so that they can pass tests.   Bloomberg and Tisch, in turn, made Steiner New York's ED Commissioner, whose office just recently voted unanimously to approve the new school in a market already saturated by other programs. 

What makes Relay (think "remote or automatic control") a uniquely monstrous offspring of teacher education is that degrees are only awarded to those candidates whose student test scores show a year's worth of gains during the year that candidates are learning to teach on poor people's children.  Those who get their degrees based on student test scores, then, go into schools with the unquestioning acceptance of test scores as the only reason for schools or teachers to exist.  Flip the switch! 

This new model was designed with the KIPP/TFA ethos of anti-cultural imperialism by white elites clearly in mind.  In fact, KIPP co-founder, David Levin, is one of the three founders of this new Test U, and many of the 200 candidates getting underway this coming Fall will be Wendy Kopp's carefully-recruited Ivy League missionaries. 

So where does NCATE play a role in this fledgling corporation? From Elizabeth Green, who is quickly becoming the Oligarchs' go-to-girl to get their stories into print:

Teacher U [Relay School of Education] has received praise at the national level, including from a group that has defended traditional schools of education in the past: the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. James Cibulka, the president of NCATE, submitted a letter to the Regents endorsing the Teacher U team’s application, citing a recent report by NCATE that cited Teacher U as an “exemplar” of needed efforts to “turn teacher education in the United States ‘upside down.’”

Yes, yes, upside down.  No evaluators sent out yet, but Cibulka knows quality before he sees it, apparently.  So top-heavy with cash, how could they fail to capsize teacher education!  In fact, one of the other three founders of Test U, aka Relay School of Education, is none other than hedge fund mogul, Larry "L-Train" Robbins. 

"L-Train Robbins"

It's worth recalling that everyone was not out to lunch on the eminent explosion of the bulging home mortgage bubble in 2008, leaving Wall Street in shambles and the hedge funders and other casino capitalist rats swimming for their offshore bank accounts.  Larry "L-Train" Robbins was one of those seers from the inside, who had the uncanny ability to make money when everyone else was taking a hit. 

When a Fortune Magazine interviewer in late 2007 asked L-Train how his Glenview Capital hedge fund was up 20 percent for the year when some other funds were getting creamed, part of his answer offered this clue:

  . . . . Second, we've maintained a short position in mortgages since late 2006. That gave us a hedge against liquidity contraction and it gave us early and valuable insights into the consumer lending market and its deteriorating conditions. 

Now we know the Fed could not have known was was going on because Greenspan said so, right?, or certainly not the media or anyone who read Fortune Magazine in 2007, but the L-Train had some remarkable insight, you might say. With quality leadership by such civic-minded swine, how can Test U fail? 

By the time David Steiner has completed his mission in Albany, Relay will likely have an endowed chair waiting for him.  Will they call it the Frederick Winslow Taylor Endowed Chair of Educational Efficiency?  Sounds good, doesn't it?

Nationalize or Privatize? Does Ravitch Have a Preference?

I just finished looking over the Q&A from the Ed Week event, and here a couple of things that stood out:

1) Ravitch knows nothing or claims to know nothing about NCATE and what teacher preparation programs are doing in terms of subject matter focus:

Question from Jane Leibbrand, VP Communications, NCATE:
Diane, I must object to your answer to Stephen Grant in saying that having a national standard "might even persuade ed schools to care about teacher quality as it relates to subject matter." Diane, a majority of states now require a degree or the equivalent in subject matter. Candidates must know the subject they plan to teach to be recommended for licensure in accredited schools of education. Knowledge of subject matter is front and center, Standard 1, in NCATE's accreditation system. The problem comes when individuals who never planned to teach enter the system, usually teaching at-risk children in low-income areas. These individuals are not from 'ed schools.' Many teachers are also assigned to teach out-of-field. Ed schools are not responsible for this distribution problem. The entire education system must work to come up with reasonable solutions to this intractable problem. We can work at reallocating resources in the at-risk schools so that more adults are in the classroom with these students--student teachers, interns, career teachers, board certified teachers (as part-time supervisors), so that one unqualified teacher is not left on her or his own in a class of at-risk students.

Diane Ravitch:
Gosh, I have loads of scars from years of contending with ed schools on the issue of subject matter. If NCATE is now putting teachers' subject matter knowledge front and center, I am very happy to hear it.

And, 2) Ravitch would just as soon privatize as nationalize:

Question from Maria Estela Carrion:
The constitution limits the powers and duties of the federal government. Setting Education policy has always been a "right" of the state. What changes are needed to provide for this transfer of power to feds? What other arguments against national standards are state governors and officials putting forward?

Diane Ravitch:
As I mentioned before, I am not sure that this authority should be vested in the federal government or in a private entity. If it were in the federal government, it would not require a constitutional amendment, as the Constitution does not mention education. Yet we do have a federal Department of Education and many programs. We would need federal authorization by Congress to create such an activity. Which is why we might be better served by getting the whole activity into the private sector, minimizing political interference and dumbing down by politicians.

I guess if you are a corporate socialist, it really doesn't make much difference whether we have a national standard or a corporate standard.

Protecting the Rights of Racists to Become Teachers

The foundations classes that I teach begin with an introduction to the study of ethics, and one of the texts we use is the NEA Code of Ethics of the Teaching Profession. The Code has this Preamble that we read and discuss:

Preamble
The educator, believing in the worth and dignity of each human being, recognizes the supreme importance of the pursuit of truth, devotion to excellence, and the nurture of the democratic principles. Essential to these goals is the protection of freedom to learn and to teach and the guarantee of equal educational opportunity for all. The educator accepts the responsibility to adhere to the highest ethical standards.

The educator recognizes the magnitude of the responsibility inherent in the teaching process. The desire for the respect and confidence of one's colleagues, of students, of parents, and of the members of the community provides the incentive to attain and maintain the highest possible degree of ethical conduct. The Code of Ethics of the Education Profession indicates the aspiration of all educators and provides standards by which to judge conduct.

The remedies specified by the NEA and/or its affiliates for the violation of any provision of this Code shall be exclusive and no such provision shall be enforceable in any form other than the one specifically designated by the NEA or its affiliates.

And then it has two Principles, the first one dealing with Commitment to the Student and the second aimed at Commitment to the Profession. Here is the first that become central in a number of hairy cases that constitute the core of the ethics part of the course:

PRINCIPLE I
Commitment to the Student
The educator strives to help each student realize his or her potential as a worthy and effective member of society. The educator therefore works to stimulate the spirit of inquiry, the acquisition of knowledge and understanding, and the thoughtful formulation of worthy goals.

In fulfillment of the obligation to the student, the educator--

1. Shall not unreasonably restrain the student from independent action in the pursuit of learning.
2. Shall not unreasonably deny the student's access to varying points of view.
3. Shall not deliberately suppress or distort subject matter relevant to the student's progress.
4. Shall make reasonable effort to protect the student from conditions harmful to learning or to health and safety.
5. Shall not intentionally expose the student to embarrassment or disparagement.
6. Shall not on the basis of race, color, creed, sex, national origin, marital status, political or religious beliefs, family, social or cultural background, or sexual orientation, unfairly--
a. Exclude any student from participation in any program
b. Deny benefits to any student
c. Grant any advantage to any student
7. Shall not use professional relationships with students for private advantage.
8. Shall not disclose information about students obtained in the course of professional service unless disclosure serves a compelling professional purpose or is required by law.

Why do I bother to print this part of the NEA Code here? Isn’t it enough that I provide this statement (that I try to live by) as the footing for the ethical foundation that prospective teachers build during my course? It would be enough, perhaps, and not worth posting if there were not now a committed group of right-wing crackpots on the loose who view these ethical values as unimportant for evaluating the readiness of prospective teachers. Yes, these are the same crackpots, now supported by Federal education policy, who would prefer to dismantle, or blow up, teacher education programs entirely.

For those still wondering what I am talking about, there is now emerging (see Chronicle article here) a full-blown neo-con fatwah on education professional schools and the emphasis by these schools on dispositions (ethical values) to which teacher candidates are expected to adhere as they prepare to become teachers.

Particularly loathsome and oppressive to oppressed white protestants (who, we may recall, control both bodies of Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court) is the emphasis on values such as “social justice.” It is particularly galling, the tirade goes, to have the liberal university language police who now run schools of education to offer any reminder to teacher candidates that skin tone might carry with it some small social or economic implication, or that there are parts of our national past and present that are not so sunny in terms of the treatment of the darker folk.

In fact, these neo-con critics, in their perennial role as anti-cultural and uni-social nitwits, view the honest treatment of the factual past as a liberal plot to demoralize the white race. What is at stake, of course, is the possibility that teacher candidates actually become conscious of racial history, which might lead some of these, otherwise, color blind co-eds to acknowledge that there are, indeed, parts of their “heritage” that might dampen their unquestioning celebration of white pride. You know, the plantation was not just a place for sipping mint juleps—but, rather, the foundational institution for American economic power in the 19th Century.

As part of my permanent atonement for being a southerner, I watch Jerry Falwell on Sunday morning when I go back home on visits. Falwell is old hand in the school history wars, and recently I heard him share with the TV flock his outrage that school history texts discuss Jefferson’s ownership of slaves. Forever blind to any sense of irony, Falwell would rather see Jefferson remembered, not as a slaveholder, but for his commitment to individual rights, which would seem to include freedom of thought and expression and belief. Except in school, of course, where Falwell and the cons prefer the indoctrination of children in meaningless platitudes intended to blind future citizens to what has made them blind.

What has brought on the current war on “dispositions?” And what are these dispositions?:

In the 2002 edition of its guidebook on professional standards, the [NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education)] detailed the kind of learning it expects, including the kind of professional dispositions it believes students need. Dispositions, the booklet says, are the "values, commitments, and professional ethics that influence behaviors toward students, families, colleagues, and communities." They "are guided by beliefs and attitudes related to values such as caring, fairness, honesty, responsibility, and social justice."

Dangerous stuff. We know now that the current war on the dangerous value of social justice is part of the much broader intrusion into higher ed that hopes to establish ideological quotas to guarantee the untrammeled presence of the endangered, exploited, and oppressed white male protestant conservative patriotic-by-lapel-pin position in every nook and cranny of the university. If there were any doubt that this is a core unacknowledged reason for Maggie’s new Commission on High Ed, have a look at these remarks by Lamar Alexander, who was purportedly at the Nashville meeting of the Commission to talk about science and math education:

Alexander said funding for colleges is threatened by a "growing political one-sidedness" on many campuses that doesn't allow for more conservative ideas.

"How many conservative speakers are invited to deliver commencement addresses? How many colleges require courses in U.S. history? How many even teach Western Civilization? ... Those are politically unacceptable topics," the Tennessee Republican testified.

Alexander, a former U.S. Secretary of Education and former president of the University of Tennessee, said colleges need to bring in more speakers and academics "with a different point of view from the prevailing point of view.

"I know it's the single biggest criticism I hear of higher education, because I'm always the one saying 'Let's have more money for colleges and universities,' " Alexander said. "The biggest thing I get thrown back in my face is, 'They're politically one-sided. Why should I support them?'"

Is the battle against inclusive factual history and social justice dispositions having any effect? Sure enough—in a spineless acquiescence to the anti-political-correctness political correctors, NCATE has quickly folded up on the issue and issued an urgent bulletin. I wonder if this what the NCATE chiefs meant at the Washington meeting that I attended when they talked about plans for closer ties with the federal government?Again, from the Chronicle:

Last month, in the midst of the controversy, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education sent a bulletin to the 614 programs it accredits, saying that education schools should not evaluate students' attitudes, but rather assess their dispositions based on "observable behavior in the classroom." It also said it does "not expect or require institutions to attend to any particular political or social ideologies."

Beliefs, values, philosophy, or ethical commitments don’t matter any more unless we observe them after they are allowed to do damage in the classroom? If a teacher can teach math, it does not matter if she is an avowed skinhead, fascist, or a dangerous liberal? NCATE has, then, just attempted to acknowledge the meaninglessness of a foundational element of what this foundations prof has committed his professional life to. Sorry, NCATE, and I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but—go the Hell.

By the way, did you ever wonder how it happened in Germany? Perfect example—the whores in higher ed were some of the first to fold.

Jim Horn

NCATE, Ed Week, UTRU, and Eli Broad

. . . this current effort is focused in large part on undoing the legacy of licensure and preparation decisions made more than a half-century ago.  --Rick Hess, Ed Week Commentary on the NCATE Report 11/17/10

In the first coverage by Ed Week of the big NCATE shake-up or shake-down of teacher education, Stephen Sawchuk reports the following:

The report’s main recommendation: Supervised, structured work of teacher-candidates in diverse classroom settings must be the foremost component of preservice teacher training, with other aspects like coursework embedded in that training. It draws heavily on the teacher-residency model and a handful of university-based education programs that take such an approach to training new teachers.

“The general message is that teachers have not been prepared well—or enough—and we need to make changes both on the front end, with preparation, and at the back end, with accountability,” said Anissa Listak, the executive director of Urban Teacher Residency United, a Chicago-based network of teacher-residency programs across the nation. “State interest, federal interest [in those reforms], I’m seeing it every day, at every level. I’m seeing funders getting involved in it in a way they haven’t before.”

Interesting, isn't it, that Ed Week's Sawchuk would go first for a quote to Urban Teacher Residency United (UTRU), whatever that is, rather than to NCATE or to one of the panel members or even to Ed Week's go-to guy from AEI, Rick Hess. So I did a some googling to find out about UTRU.

It seems that URTU was founded in 2007 as a non-profit outfit with lofty aspirations for "setting the standard for urban teacher preparation on a national scale."  It is essentially a modified TFA model that offers the added bonus of a mentor during the first year that their highly-recruited and closely screened neophytes are learning to teach on poor people's children.  The URTU mandate is to work "closely with school districts, not-for-profit organizations and universities to launch and support effective Urban Teacher Residencies."

Now the question is, who funds URTU?  Glad you asked.  That would be a venture philanthropy outfit called Strategic Grant Partner (SGP) founded in 2002 by fourteen unnamed families in Massachusetts.  From the website:

In September 2002, fourteen families agreed to join the collaborative Strategic Grant Partners. The families established the common mission of helping struggling individuals and families in Massachusetts improve their lives. Since that time, SGP has granted $26,000,000.


The philosophy and practice of SGP continued to develop over the years. We began with informal strategic support and business advice to potential and existing grantees. This work matured into our current model of close working partnerships with grantees. The pro bono consulting services we provide include helping grantees develop organizational strategies, theories of change and strategic plans as well as tactical support on key implementation issues.

Once an organization becomes an SGP grantee, SGP staff continues to provide ongoing advice and strategic assistance as well as hands on, practical implementation support to ensure the organization is as successful as possible. . . .

Now the person in charge of SGP's portfolio of educational ventures such as URTU is a former English major with an MBA from Cornell named Barbara Sullivan. She is no doubt young and full of enthusiasm, with the added benefit of her own residency (2004-2006) at Eli Broad's training camp for edupreneurs, the Broad Center. Small world, isn't it?

While at the Broad Center, Sullivan had a residency with Boston Public Schools, where she "served as Special Assistant to the Chief Operating Officer and spearheaded the redesign of the district’s student assignment process."

Sullivan's Broad-sponsored work is the same segregative student assignment plan that BPS Superintendent, Carol Johnson, has been trying to get replaced since 2009:

Johnson had been scheduled to submit a revamped proposal to the School Committee next month after parents, educators, and civil right activists raised concerns that the original plan would leave low-income students with fewer options to attend high-quality schools.

Instead, Johnson said she plans to study how other urban districts maintain the economic and racial diversity of their schools without spending huge amounts of money on busing.

A new proposal may not be ready for another year. The district applied for a $230,000 federal grant Friday to fund the study and expects to hear in October about approval.

“We are committed to opportunities for children to attend schools where they work with a diverse student population,’’ Johnson said in a meeting with reporters yesterday. . . .

Try as Dr. Johnson may, Broad's lemmings don't seem to be a hurry to end the segregation and containment that they helped put in place.  And we may guess who really runs BPS.  The lack of movement, transparency, and public involvement has been so bad, in fact, that three civil rights organizations (read the letter here as a pdf)  withdrew their participation from the process in July:

. . . . School officials were informed of the decision in a letter sent by e-mail Monday by the three organizations — the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law of the Boston Bar Association. 

“We have reached this decision based on what many perceive as BPS’ lack of meaningful engagement with the community during this process,’’ the organizations wrote in the letter, which they provided to the Globe yesterday.

Superintendent Carol R. Johnson called the severed partnership unfortunate and surprising. She disputed the lack of community engagement, saying that she has been gathering public opinion as she speaks to parents, students, and other community members on a variety of issues confronting the district. 

“I think it’s unfortunate they decided not to work further with us,’’ Johnson said. “I think these are very difficult sets of questions and conversations to have about student assignment. That’s why we reached out to them in the first place.’’

According to a new timeline, the district plans to formally consult parents and students on student assignments next January, while the School Committee would vote later in the year on a resulting plan so it can be enacted for Fall 2012.

So the inner and invisible workings of the Oligarchs continues in every public domain, shaping policies to fit the agendas of corporate America to reward the haves and to contain and control the have nots, all the while creating a new class of arrogant, ignorant, and blind technocratic and positivized do-gooders whose own lack of understanding allows them to believe they are doing good by bringing corporate control to public institutions.

The question, however, remains for Mr. Sawchuk of the "objective" Education Week:  how did he choose a rep from an outfit created and funded and managed by the corporate education reform industry as the lead quote on a big story about changes to teacher education accreditation??  Now THAT is transparency!

NCATE Caves on Social Justice

Inside Higher Ed reported June 6 that Arthur Wise, President of NCATE, ended the discussion on the role of social justice in teacher preparation by simply capitulating before the real debate could begin. A case of pure cowardice, neocon hardball politics, or a deadly mixture of both? To commemorate NCATE's shameful acceptance of the racist claim that the goal of social justice is a liberal ideology, I offered this bit of commentary back in December when the stink began in earnest. I posted that opinion as a comment to the IHE story yesterday, to which this response came from someone identified as DRB:

Jim Horn,

I’m having a hard time understanding your point. I think it’s that only people who think like you should be allowed to teach, but I could be wrong. So far as I can tell, none of the “neo-cons” or anyone else is suggesting that people who hold far-left views should be barred from the teaching profession. The only point is that teaching has to be open to people of different political persuasions: politics has nothing to do with the ability to teach.

As for the notion of “Dispositions” in general — well, I suppose that it makes sense to screen prospective teachers for certain personal qualities such as enthusiasm and honesty, and for primary school teachers, maybe even kindness and empathy. But it’s very difficult for me to see why political views, such as whether and to what degree the Government should support poor people, or what the proper level and distribution of taxes ought to be, or whether the Government should adopt affirmative action programs, or whether the Government should recognize homosexual marriages, have any bearing on a person’s qualifications to teach.

Consider the opposite: How would you (and Mr. Socol) feel if the accrediting bodies determined that to be qualified as a teacher one had to believe that homesexuality is immoral, that gun ownership is a key civil right, and that racial classifications are inherently demeaning and unequal? I think you’d object, and rightly so. Why, then, are you so surprised when moderates and conservatives object to far-left litmus tests for teacher accreditation?

DBL, at 10:30 am EDT on June 8, 2006

And my rejoinder (I always get the last word):

Dear Mr. or Ms. DLB, or is it Dr. DLB,

You are absolutely correct in your interpretation that I am insisting that those who teach should agree with me. Where you are wrong, of course, is in your characterization of what I believe.

I believe that a free society requires that free people allow others to be free, but that allowance does not extend to the point of using that freedom to limit others’ freedom. To allow that kind of freedom would be a direct challenge the notion of freedom, itself. Dr. King said it much better, when he said that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

I believe that justice can only be achieved when we acknowledge that profound fact, and I believe that anyone who does not acknowledge that fact and who is unwilling to act accordingly, has no place in a classroom of children whose learning of that fact will determine the future of our democratic aspirations to be a free people.

We may distinguish, too, between legal justice and social justice. The goal of social justice was around long before legal justice arrived, and it will still be here long after legal justice leaves the arena. For instance, educational discrimination based on race was antithetical to social justice long before Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeks, and it will remain antithetical to social justice even as the Brown decision has been and continues to be eviscerated by court decisions and legislative actions aimed at protecting the rights of the majority. This is part of the historical reality of living with racism today, just as the struggle to end racism will remain central to the struggle to create a free, democratic society.

Yet I am not naive enough to expect that such freedom will be freely given: the struggle for social justice will remain a struggle. As Dr. King said, too, “freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

That demand for freedom, then, can only begin when that oppression is acknowledged and understood by the oppressed. And that, of course, is why Dewey, King, Freire, and anyone else aimed at unlocking the chains of ignorance are castigated and demonized by those who have much more to protect than they have to give.

Nobody said it was going to be easy, Mr. or Ms. or Dr. DLB.

Sincerely,
Jim Horn

From NCATE Capitulation to Glenn Beck's McCarthyist Ravings: A Morality Tale

During the reign of Bush II, conservatives from George Will to Lamar Alexander to Rush Limbaugh were partially successful in turning social justice into a partisan issue and, thus, were instrumental in expunging even the words from the literature of many institutions that claimed a non-partisan status. The most prominent example in education was the elimination of even the term "social justice" from showing up anywhere in the NCATE standards.

This appeasement, in turn, gave cover to teacher education programs, already under attack for not giving Milton Friedman equal billing with John Dewey, to pull social justice from college course and program descriptions. For the bigots who see social justice as a threat to the power relations that preserve the status quo of a society still corrupted by overt and covert racism and classism, it was a heady time. (Such demonization and marginalization of language continues today, as evidenced this week in the National Review's new bogeyman watchword, "sustainability." God save us, after all, from those who argue for passing on an inhabitable world to our grandchildren.)

The refusal to stand up to dweebs like George Will a few years ago have now opened up new territory for Tea Party fuse, Glenn Beck, who recently took up the cause of killing social justice with his daily listeners and viewers. Finally, perhaps, we may see where appeasement to injustice leads.

"Clinically-Based Teacher Preparation"

If there is a phrase that you are likely to get as sick of hearing in the next few years as you did "scientifically-based evidence" during the last few, it is likely to be "clinically based teacher preparation."  No doubt, too, this new catch phrase will have about as much connection to science as the last one did, which is minimal to none.

"Clinically-based teacher preparation" represents a new scheme to further weaken the impetus toward child advocacy and ethical student treatment, the social justice mission of schools, and the progressive and humane philosophical grounding of teacher education that has been under attack since Reagan came to power.  The new plan was incubated and hatched by the gang that brought you the era of nonstop test and punish, corporate welfare charter queens, anti-cultural shrunken curricula, teacher demonization and union busting, Reading First parrot teaching, DIBELS, corporate tutoring, the super-sized junk food textbook, and unending data surveillance systems.  It has been marched out under the banner of what has been until now a highly-regarded teacher accreditation outfit known as NCATE.

First, a comment about the psychology of this "comprehensive" report, which bears the schizophrenic markings that only come from hurried committee construction by forces in clear opposition.  For instance, we see corporate America's anti-preparation program, Teach for America, mentioned in the same paragraph with the highly-respected Alverno College, as if there is some equivalence of legitimacy between the two to teacher education.  And many alternative prep scams in between, all given full-throated support by the organization charged with the responsibility to uphold the integrity of teacher education in the U. S. Sad, but done. Very sad.

If NCATE really wanted to move to a clinical model that would emulate American medical education, it would have taken some effort the make changes much more significant than the ones outlined in this pathetic report.  For instance, in medical ed, we have pre-med preceding med school, which has its clinical internship, as well as pre-clinical component.  The pre-clinical is made up of three years of classroom study in basic and medical science, supplemented by heavy doses of acculturation and observation. Following the clinical comes at least three years in residency.

Based on the three "crucial goals" being advanced below, it would seem that very little time or coursework, if any, is being added to the "clinical" teacher model.  Rather, it seems that more of the existing time is being given over to the "clinical" with the effect being a further reduction of the pre-clinical.  If you can think of a doctor prescribing a medicine without understanding chemical interactions, or a surgeon cutting you open without knowing where the veins and arteries are, then you get the picture.  The pre-clinical body of knowledge--child development, educational psychology and sociology, educational philosophy and history, learning science, cognitive science, curriculum theory and practice, research skills, classroom management, and human dynamics--all will be subjected in the new plan to a further squeeze, rather than being expanded to really develop the heft, breadth, and depth that would truly emulate a medical model.

So does TFA, then, qualify as a "clinical" model?  Why not?  Let's give these med students 5 weeks of pre-clinical education and then dump them into a hospital where people are dying left and right. But don't worry, they are learning something about chemistry and anatomy at night after a ten-hour day at the hospital, where the roof is leaking, by the way, and there's no toilet paper in the bathroom, and patients are being treated in broom closets.

This phony-baloney, scientifically-sounding super sham of a plan represents the final capitulation by a once-respectable organization to the corporate boards, corporate foundations, and the oligarchs who own them.  This will open the floodgates to "alternative certification" and the further diminution and marginalization of university programs that have never acceded to the new role of training prison guards, rather than teachers.  Teacher education, the real kind, will survive through this dark period, but it won't be with the help of an agency whose integrity has been bought and paid for by the corporate oligarchy for the benefit a handful of dress up and go to lunch bureaucrats with the moral courage of slugs.

Oh yes, the crucial goals:

Specifically, the Alliance partners will focus on advancing three crucial goals:

1. Foster collaborative partnerships among schools, districts, and teacher preparation programs by:
Identifying demonstration sites that have or will develop a strong partnership between teacher preparation programs and school districts or schools with a particular focus on high-needs schools.

Testing different delivery models for clinically based teacher preparation such as year-long residencies as part of four year programs; two-year post-baccalaureate programs using spiral curricula that weave together content, theory and laboratory experiences in year one and full year school-embedded residencies in year two; and preservice practica experiences designed to engage candidates with a group of students throughout their professional programs to follow their cognitive, social, and developmental needs over time.

Establishing incentives to create joint responsibility for induction by hiring districts and preparation programs.

Developing innovative funding models to institutionalize teacher preparation through the  school/teacher preparation program clinical model.

Working with diverse preparation programs to assure that robust clinical teacher preparation is a central feature across all pathways into the teaching profession.

2. Assess all aspects of performance on a continuing basis by:
Collecting and analyzing multiple measures of formative and summative assessment data used by teacher candidates reflecting classroom learning and school improvement.

Linking performance assessments to state licensing requirements.

Expecting demonstration sites to establish and implement an accountability system based on assessment measures of graduates’ and programs’ performance through value-added and other measures in state and district longitudinal data systems.

Including performance assessment of establishing teacher preparation programs for the purpose of program improvement in the state’s teacher preparation approval system.

3. Develop more effective state policies to prepare teachers who meet school needs by:
Offering incentives or establishing policies that guide the numbers and types of teachers who are prepared so that school and district needs are met.

Identifying and eliminating or addressing state and local policies and practices that might impede innovation and shifting to clinically based teacher preparation programs.

Creating a “scale-up” plan to expand from a limited number of clinical teacher preparation partnerships to a state-wide system of such partnerships as a means for improving student learning – especially in high-needs schools.

Publishing My Email Exchanges with D. Ravitch, Part 2

Since Diane Ravitch has chosen to slime me in her most recent blog post, I have decided to publish some of the dozens of emails that I have exchanged with Ravitch since her highly advertised conversion from neoconservative elitism to neoliberal elitism.  It is important, I think, to read these emails for the facts that Ravitch has ignored in order to depict me the dangerous, misogynistic, and racist bad guy.

Soon after NPE was created, I wrote to Diane in March 2013 to better understand her choice of two NPE board members who had advanced the concept of performance pay for teachers.  NPE board members, Anthony Cody and Renee Moore, had promoted performance pay for teachers as a good idea, while working with crackpot, Barnett Berry, whose neoliberal think tank in North Carolina has provided and promoted a number of bad ideas, e.g., Relay, to NCATE, the Gates Foundation, and other oligarchic groups.

After leaving  Berry’s nest, Cody had since backtracked on the performance pay idea, but when Renee Moore was chosen as an NPE Board member, she remained available on the lecture circuit to promote bonus pay for teachers.

Below is part of that exchange.  You may note that Diane was using some of the same tactics then as now.

On Mar 10, 2013, at 11:54 AM, James Horn <ontogenyx@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Diane,

I am working on a piece on the Network for Public Education, and I wondering if you would share with me how you came to be associated with this organization, since it seems to reflect a philosophical shift from your earlier statement in your email last May (see below).

Also, I know that you have written about "zombie ideas" like merit or performance pay.  Two of your officers, Cody and Moore, have a published history of supporting performance pay and the use of test scores to (partially at least) make high stakes decisions such as promotion and pay.  They were part of Barnett Berry's big push a few years ago for a performance pay scheme, and Moore wrote a chapter in Berry's fanciful look at education in 2030--"teacherpreneurs," etc. etc. (As an aside, it appears that Berry supplied NCATE with  their crackpot idea about making TeacherU/Relay a model for teacher ed.  

Moore's specialty, it seems, is performance pay.  She is still on the road, it appears, promoting this zombie idea:

 http://www.tqsource.org/webcasts/payforteach/pptpresentations.php

I plan to write to both Anthony and Renee for their comments, but before I do, I wanted to write you first.  

Also, I am wondering if you can share with me the process for choosing/electing officers. btw, I cannot think of anyone I would rather see heading up a legitimate organization to fight the billionaires and corporate bloodsuckers than you.

. . . .

While I would love to see an umbrella group emerge that would help consolidate and focus our efforts, such an org has to beyond reproach and imminent scandal.  I think you and Heilig fit that criteria, from where I sit. 

What we don't need is another group to attempt to coopt and neutralize the growing urge for action to end high stakes standardized testing.  Change will happen when people demand change and act upon those demands (see Texas or Chicago).  It won't happen from sitting congressional offices talking to post-adolescent staffers supplied by the Gates Foundation.

Thanks, in advance.

Best,

Jim

Subject: Re: questions re new org

Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2013 12:24:57 -0400

To: ontogenyx@gmail.com

Jim,

Anthony had the original idea for starting a PAC to fight the corporate reformers. He asked me to work with him. I was happy to do so.

Together we selected a small group of people to work with us. In time, we hope to expand our board. We are just getting started. 

I can't say that I have read every single thing that every board member has said or written, but every single person agreed to our launch statement. We are all opposed to high-stakes testing, mass school closings,privatization, and evaluation of educators by test scores. 

I hope you will help us with what we are trying to do: build a network of grassroots groups and individuals across the country to fight back. No loyalty tests.

I am, as you know, unalterably opposed to merit pay or any rewards or punishments tied to test scores. I think educators should be paid more for doing more, for getting advanced degrees, for taking on more responsibility, but not for higher test scores.

Diane

On Mar 11, 2013, at 8:58 AM, James Horn <ontogenyx@gmail.com> wrote:

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/01/15/the-best-resources-for-learning-why-teacher-merit-pay-is-a-bad-idea/

On Mar 12, 2013, at 1:25 PM, Diane Ravitch <gardendr@gmail.com> wrote:

Jim,

Did you notice that I wrote three of the articles on Larry's list?

Really, get over your paranoia. Neither I nor anyone in our group is a secret agent of the Billionaire Boys Club.

Diane

On Mar 12, 2013, at 1:35 PM, James Horn <ontogenyx@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes, I did notice that.  It makes all the more puzzling as to why you and Anthony would name as one of your Directors a person who is actively engaged in spreading the pro-performance pay message.  

http://www.tqsource.org/webcasts/payforteach/pptpresentations.php

I can smile at your calling me a nitpicker, but calling me paranoid for asking a legitimate question that remains unanswered doesn't amuse me.   

Still waiting to hear from Renee.

Jim

On Mar 12, 2013, at 3:51 PM, Diane Ravitch <gardendr@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm sorry for calling you paranoid. 

I don't understand why you are so eager to take down a group that agrees with what you want because one member wrote something you disagree with --and I disagree with.

Nobody's right all the time. I was wrong for years.

Now we are uniting to try to stop a massive onslaught against the very idea of public education. The barbarians are at the gate. This is not the time to quarrel amongst ourselves.

Diane

On Mar 12, 2013, at 4:37 PM, James Horn <ontogenyx@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for the link to Renee's blog.  That was the first place I left a message--no email listed.

Hi Renee,

I am doing a story on the Network for Public Schools, and I would like to talk with you about your involvement.

Please email me at your convenience.

Thank you.

Jim Horn, PhD

Cambridge College

Schools Matter

So if either of you would like to share with Renee that I would like to communicate with her, I will be most appreciative.  I hope that you have her email address, since leaving a note on her blog doesn't seem to be the most effective means of communication.  I don't expect you to give to me, but I would appreciate you letting her know that I have this question:  How do you square your public position on performance pay and high stakes testing for evaluation of teachers with the position of NPE?

In terms of "taking down a group," that is not my desire or intent now, just as it was not my intent or desire during the Bob George fiasco with SOS.   If there is anything to be learned from the SOS debacle, it is that people will not support an outfit that prefers to attack those who ask questions rather than providing straightforward and transparent responses to what anyone would find as serious inconsistency.  Now that is something I truly do NOT understand. 

Jim

On Mar 12, 2013, at 4:48 PM, Diane Ravitch wrote:

No one attacked you, Jim. 

Disagreement is not an attack. 

Renee is an NBCT teacher. 

We admire her dedication, her competence, her experience, and her passion for teaching.

Diane

The following exchange is from March 23.

Subject: Re: please share with all of your officers and members

From: ontogenyx@gmail.com

Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2013 12:24:56 -0400

Anthony and Diane, 

I held off on having anything to say about NPE until I returned to town.  Just got back.  I was disappointed to find no email response from Renee Moore or any further clarification on appointing an officer (Director) whose public and ongoing support of pay for test score schemes runs counter to public remarks by both of you.

I would like to offer one more opportunity to say something about how your officer's enthusiasm for performance pay and her involvement in the corporate futurology piece, Teaching 2030, squares with this and much else from Diane's latest newsletter:

We support assessments that are used to support children and teachers, not to punish or stigmatize them or to hand out monetary rewards.

Should the officers of your organization be aligned with and  supportive of the organization's goals?

Thanks much.

Jim

On Mar 23, 2013, at 1:04 PM, Anthony Cody <anthony_cody@hotmail.com> wrote:

Jim,

Renee has been tied up with travel and family issues, so she has not had much time to spend on our project. 

If you have time, I would be interested in talking about this over the phone. I will be available tomorrow afternoon, from around 2 pm eastern to 5 eastern.

I will be available on my cell, at ______________.

anthony

Diane Ravitch wrote March 23, 2016 at 1:22 PM:

Jim,

I confess that I have not read everything single thing that every officer and board member has ever written. If anyone did the same to me, they would have nothing to do with me, as I have written many articles over the years that I now regret. 

The principles of our group are clear. What we are for and what we are against is explicit. I see no reason to ask anyone to sign a loyalty oath.

Why don't you join us?

Diane

________________

Then in November 2013 I sent this note to Diane during her recovery from a fall:

On Nov 8, 2013, at 8:27 PM, James Horn <ontogenyx@gmail.com> wrote:

I am hoping this unscheduled break in the action leaves you rested and ready to raise hell soon with the CorpEd losers.  Take your time, don't rush, listen to the docs.  We need Diane Ravitch well!

Warm regards,

Jim H

On November 8, 2013 at 8:34 PM, Diane Ravitch wrote:

Thank you, Jim, I will be after them as soon as I recover.

Diane

So despite Diane’s most recent angry and defamatory allegations, I hold no malice toward her as a person.  The steep uptick of her support for the corporate unions and the Wall Street Democrats since 2013, and her key support for the next generation of corporate ed reform in ESSA have put Diane Ravitch in an ideological No man’s land or on the other side of the battle lines from those who stand against segregated education, testing accountability, and corporate profiteering in education. 

Unfortunately for her, most of what she has done can’t be undone with another well-timed mea culpa.  As my grandfather might say, she has made her bed and now she has sleep in it.