Author Archive: Sue Legg

What’s Going On With Civics Education?

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Amendment 8 to the Florida Constitution includes a requirement for K12 civics education which the Florida Department of Education already requires for seventh grade. There’s also a muddy mess about a post secondary civics literacy requirement based on HB 7069. The law requires an existing exam to measure civics literacy for a course that does not exist. A faculty committee was formed to develop the competencies, but nothing has come of it up to now.

An analysis of the requirement was prepared by the House staff.

OPPAGA studied the civics literacy option and found no general agreement on what civics literacy is. The topics are broad: U.S. and State History, economics, U.S. Government, Economics, and of course the U.S. Constitution.

Florida Politics published an article by Bob Halladay who questions the legality of the effort to build the college level test that is currently under contract with the University of Central Florida. The law requires the course to administer an ‘existing’ test, but there isn’t one. Given the number and courses involved, some argue that the U.S. Immigration Test should be the model for a course.

It is difficult to fathom what the sudden interest in civics literacy is all about. One wonders if it is related to an earlier proposal to require instruction in economic theories behind anti government ideologies. One think we know for sure….we do not need another test. The current seventh grade civics test has lots of facts no doubt soon forgotten.

Florida Gets an ‘F’ on Support for Public Education

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Public education is about the value and necessity of providing equal access to high quality education. As public funds get diverted to private schools and entrepreneurs, the public school system gets more and more fractured. There is less money as cost inefficiencies mount. More communities are fractured by race, income, and academic programs. In areas where privatization is dominant, parents must search for a school to accept their children. If transportation is a problem, as it often is, they may not have good choices because available schools may be segregated racially, economically and/or by achievement levels. They may not even have a way to evaluate the quality of the available options.

By design, no one really knows much about where the money is spent and what is happening in privately operated schools. Parents who question are invited to withdraw their children. Children who do not ‘fit in’ are invited to leave. There are people in leadership positions for whom children can be ploys in policies to implement a political and/or religious agenda. Proponents celebrate their successes without regard for the children they exclude, dismiss or serve poorly. Parents learn this the hard way.

Most private schools are openly religious. Many charters are covertly supporting particular religious orientations e.g. those housed in religious facilities or that espouse a particular set of ‘Christian or other values’.

Many charters and private schools do not support children with special needs or who are learning English as a second language.

The Schott Foundation and the Network for Public Education analyzed data to assess support for public education in each state. Overall, Florida received an ‘F’. You can see state-by-state results here.
The criteria include:
1. Types and extent of school privatization
2. Civil rights protection of students in private school voucher and charter programs
3. Accountability, regulations and oversight
4. Transparency of voucher and charter programs
5. Other charter school accountability issues

Florida’s low grade is due several factors:
1. It has the most school privatization of all states.
2. Students receiving vouchers and tax-credit scholarships are not required to participate in the state testing or teacher certification programs. Private schools are not required to be accredited. Thus, most are small religious schools of unknown quality. Private schools are also exempt from federal civil rights protection. Children can be denied admission or expelled for any reason.

What would improve accountability?
1. Comparable pubic and private school student achievement measures.
2. Transparency in how money is spent for charter and voucher ESE students by individual schools.
3. Comparable attrition and discipline measures for public, charter and private schools.
4. Public accountability of spending by charter management firms.
5. Stronger provisions to avoid conflict of interest between charter board members and management companies.
6. Return school facilities to the public if charters close.

District-Charter Compacts

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This is worth more than a glance.  You can see the impact or lack thereof, of a Gates Foundation program to improve collaboration between districts and charters.  The evaluation of this effort gives specific examples based on 23 District charter collaborations  formed across the nation since 2011.  The Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) report cited what was and was not accomplished and why.

Continue reading→

CRC Amendment 8

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Erika Donalds, the founder of the alternative school board association has formed a political action committee to support her conservative religious reform agenda in education. She calls it ‘8 is Great’. Indian River School Board member Shawn Frost and Duval School Board member Scott Shine have joined the PAC according to the Tampa Bay Times.

There is a story behind this group. You can read it here. Donalds is a public advocate for

Amendment 8 combines proposals for school board term limits with a requirement for civics literacy and independent schools. Term limits and independent schools are Donald’s proposals. Commissioner Pam Stewart has reservations about both. Removing local school board control over the establishment of charter schools goes too far, she said. Patricia Levesque, CEO of Jeb Bush’s education foundation supports the proposal.

Former Senate President Don Gaetz proposed civics literacy even though civics is already required for Florida students. His rationale was that future legislators might want to remove civics education from the curriculum.

There seems to be no good reason for any of these proposals. They are clearly the agenda of a narrow group of people seeking to destroy public education in favor of private and religious schools along with profit seeking charters. Maybe the motto should be? 8 NOT great!

Death by a Thousand Cuts

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Valerie Strauss, in the Washington Post, shares an article outlining the history of school privatization….and why it matters.

The history, written by Joanne Barkan, is well documented. It centers on the backlash from desegregation, and ties it to the increasing role of the federal government in education. For example, the first federal charter school legislation was signed by President Bill Clinton. Yet nearly twenty-five years later, support for charters and vouchers is waning. The reasons are spelled out in the discussion of the following topics:

*Sowing the seeds of market based reform
*Building a movement from the top down
*Anatomy of vouchers and charter schools
*Charter school performance
*A closer look at vouchers
*Corruption and segregation
*Shifting landscape

Even in a world where facts matter less, it is possible to help people become aware of what they can lose in the ‘world of choice’.

Test Policy to Lower Graduation Rates

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The State Board of Education voted to raise alternative SAT and ACT English and Algebra I test scores for high school graduation. It also eliminated the option of using the P.E.R.T. scores to meet high school FSA graduation requirements.

The argument for raising the SAT and ACT scores was that current levels are easier than the FSA levels for the same subjects. New data collected since 2016 indicate that the increase is necessary to make the difficulty levels for the FSA Algebra I and ELA Math and the SAT/ACT comparable.

The concerns are that many students who use the alternatives to the FSA are minorities, and the state graduation rates are expected to decline as a result. They are already below the 2017 national average of 84%. When the new cutoff scores are implemented in 2020, graduation rates are likely to drop approximately ten percent. No currently enrolled high school students will be affected.

Making valid comparisons of scores on different tests is always a challenge. Nevertheless, given that the FSA end of course exams are administered on a fixed schedule, it is not always possible for students who take six week credit retrieval courses or other classes with variable time lengths to sit the FSA tests. Thus, having national tests as an option for these students is helpful.

The more important concern is judging student competence. Any test is only a partial measure of students’ skills and abilities. Determining competence is a judgment. Competence is what a panel of educators and policy makers say it is. As expectations rise for what students must know and be able to do, the cut off scores on tests rise. Students deemed ‘competent’ five years ago may not make the cut now.

Florida policy makers are driving up expectations that not all students can meet and many schools do not have the resources to help students try. Policy makers and educators manipulate the numbers to meet their goals. The result is that state mandated tests weed students out; they do not bring students up.

Yet, all students and parents have the right to know how well students and schools perform and why. This ‘why’ is the elephant in the room.

Funding levels are down and expectations are up. What’s the old adage? You can’t get something from nothing? Or is it, You get what you pay for?

You can see the DOE cut scores here.

VPK Standards Up; Scores Drop

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Four year old children in Voluntary Prekindergarten have to meet higher standards, particularly in math. As a result, 43% of the providers failed to meet the new standards compared to 22% in 2013. These standards have not been taught, so lower scores are no surprise. The increase in math standards requires students to count to 31; determine which is more, equal or less in sets of ten objects, and recognize circles, squares, triangles, and rectangles.

Results of the fall 2017 by county can be found here. Scroll down to the RESULTS section.

For more information about Florida’s Early Learning Program see here.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20180522/new-test-impacts-floridas-kindergarten-readiness-rates

Protest Against For-Profit Charter in Sarasota

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The Sarasota school board will vote today on a proposed Pinecrest charter run by the for-profit management company Academica. This is the company investigated by the U.S. government for conflict of interest. A local education advocacy group “Protect our Public Schools plans to protest this afternoon.

Surgery Success

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My eye muscle surgery was last Wednesday. It will take six weeks to heal. The surgeon is encouraging. Reading etc. takes effort, but it should improve.

Governor Graham on CRC Education Amendment

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For years, former Governor Graham was a strong advocate for civics education. He does not support the Constitutional Revision Commission’s proposal to lump together civics, school board term limits and charters not approved by school boards in a proposal for voter approval in November.

Graham makes the case that not only is the amendment a hodge podge, it is not even good for civics education. Florida already requires students to learn a whole host of information about our governments’ policies and practices. Read Governor Graham’s comment in the Sun Sentinel and the Herald Tribune that he will not support this amendment.

I received an email message today from Chris Hand, Governor Graham’s long term associate. He does not support the education amendment either.

Advocates for this amendment claim it has a common theme. There may well be one….from groups like the Florida version of conservative Freedom Caucus. Senator Baxley from Marion County had a civics bill in the last legislative session that died.

The Koch brothers have invested millions of dollars in free social studies curriculum that has been distributed widely. This is revisionist history at best. Read about it here.

The original drafters of this amendment e.g. Erika Donalds and Gaetz, when it was divided into separate proposals, represent the conservative caucus in Florida.

Recognize this amendment for what it is…a political statement that does not belong in the Florida constitution.