Friday, April 8, 2016
Question: What do these statements have in common?
• All of them came from Arizona Republican legislators this year.
• All of them were made to justify a bill or a ruling.
• All of them follow the Republican rule, "When you don't have a good, defensible reason for something you want to do, make shit up."
The most recent statement, at the top, is House Speaker Gowan's attempt to explain his jaw-dropping, third-world-dictator-style ruling that all reporters must submit to extensive background checks if they want to be on the floor of the House of Representatives — you know, the place where they do their jobs by talking with representatives about pending issues. Arizona has a 34 year history of reporters with floor privileges without an incident, but Gowan says it's not safe to have reporters rubbing elbows with legislators unless their backgrounds have been thoroughly checked, because, 9/11. This at the same time he's been outed for letting legislators carry guns onto the House floor.
The reason for the ruling is obvious to every reporter who has written about it. Gowan is pissed at Hank Stephenson of the Capitol Times who dug through the records of Gowan's travel expenses and found the Speaker was charging the state for travel that wasn't part of his duties. Gowan had to refund $12,000 and is having his expenses investigated. Ouch! Now, it happens Stephenson has a trespassing conviction on his record, which means he would be barred from the floor under the new rules. But he can't admit it's revenge on Stephenson and a warning to the rest of the reporters, "Watch out what you write, we know where you make your living." So he said "9/11," which explainseverything nothing.
“There had never been an attack on 9/11 either, like that occurred either, before on our shore,” [Rep. David Gowan, R-Sierra Vista] said. “But it did.”Answer:
“The quality of handwriting and the quality of the written text can be detected and seen on MRI imaging,” said Rep. Brenda Barton, R-Payson.
“What is indisputable is that many people believe it’s happening,” [Rep. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler] said. “You can’t really argue with that. And I think that matters.”
• All of them came from Arizona Republican legislators this year.
• All of them were made to justify a bill or a ruling.
• All of them follow the Republican rule, "When you don't have a good, defensible reason for something you want to do, make shit up."
The most recent statement, at the top, is House Speaker Gowan's attempt to explain his jaw-dropping, third-world-dictator-style ruling that all reporters must submit to extensive background checks if they want to be on the floor of the House of Representatives — you know, the place where they do their jobs by talking with representatives about pending issues. Arizona has a 34 year history of reporters with floor privileges without an incident, but Gowan says it's not safe to have reporters rubbing elbows with legislators unless their backgrounds have been thoroughly checked, because, 9/11. This at the same time he's been outed for letting legislators carry guns onto the House floor.
The reason for the ruling is obvious to every reporter who has written about it. Gowan is pissed at Hank Stephenson of the Capitol Times who dug through the records of Gowan's travel expenses and found the Speaker was charging the state for travel that wasn't part of his duties. Gowan had to refund $12,000 and is having his expenses investigated. Ouch! Now, it happens Stephenson has a trespassing conviction on his record, which means he would be barred from the floor under the new rules. But he can't admit it's revenge on Stephenson and a warning to the rest of the reporters, "Watch out what you write, we know where you make your living." So he said "9/11," which explains
Tags: Rep. David Gowan , Rep. Brenda Barton , Rep. J.D. Mansard , Vote suppression , Ballot harvesting , Teaching cursive
Thursday, April 7, 2016
Three separate stories about high stakes testing, computers, servers and data.
1. Evidence indicates that some students who take high stakes tests on computers do worse than similar students who use pencil and paper versions.
Generally, the least computer literate students are low income kids who don't have ready access to computers and the internet at home, so if they have to take their tests on a computer, they have yet another handicap when high stakes test time rolls around.
1. Evidence indicates that some students who take high stakes tests on computers do worse than similar students who use pencil and paper versions.
Hard numbers from across the consortium are not yet available. But the advantage for paper-and-pencil test-takers appears in some cases to be substantial, based on independent analyses conducted by one prominent PARCC state and a high-profile school district that administered the exams.It'll take more information to determine the computer effect on test scores, but it's fairly obvious that students who aren't comfortable using computers and have to take on-screen versions of the tests are going to face obstacles which can lower their scores. If they're occasional computer users, the acts of scrolling through the test, clicking the right answer, then clicking on the next question (or doing similar actions using a touch screen) will demand concentration that will take away from their ability to give their full attention to the test, and will slow them down at the same time. Have you ever tried using your computer mouse with your "wrong" hand? I've logged thousands of hours in front of the computer, so basic tasks take no more thought from me than turning the pages of a book, but the few times I've tried to use my mouse left handed, I got confused about which direction to move it and where to click, which drew my attention away from what I was doing on the computer and made it more difficult to concentrate on the texts I was moving through. I'm sure if I had to take a challenging test on a computer with the mouse in my left hand, my concentration would be divided, my frustration level would skyrocket and my score would drop significantly.
Generally, the least computer literate students are low income kids who don't have ready access to computers and the internet at home, so if they have to take their tests on a computer, they have yet another handicap when high stakes test time rolls around.
Tags: High stakes tests , Computer tests , University of Kansas , Center for Educational Testing & Evaluation , STAAR test , PARCC test
The Pima County Interfaith Civic Education Organization will host a debate about the fervently discussed, Gov. Doug Ducey-sponsored Proposition 123 this Saturday, April 9 at St. Odilia Catholic Church parish hall.
The proposition, which voters will decide in a state-wide election on May 17, would "increase education funding by $3.5 billion over the course of 10 years by allocating money from the general fund and increasing annual distributions of the state land trust permanent funds to education," according to Ballotpedia.com. The Arizona Daily Star reports that the lawsuit was originally filed back in 2010 after the state "failed to adjust the base level per-pupil funding according to inflation as required by a 2000 voter-approved proposition."
Supporters of Prop 123 say it would fulfill a long-overdue debt to Arizona schools, while opponents—notably led by Arizona State Treasurer Jeff DeWitt—say the state land trust money in question already belongs to the state's schools, according to the debate's press release.
"The Debate on Prop. 123" on Saturday will feature four speakers—two arguing for the passing of Prop. 123, and two against it. Phoenix natives J.P. Twist, Let's Vote Yes Prop. 123 chairman, and Andrew Morrill, Arizona Education Association president, will argue in support of Prop. 123, while Tucson natives Morgan Abraham, No Prop. 123 chairman, and Brian Clymer, a local attorney, will argue against it.
The debate starts at 3 p.m. and will run until 4:30 at 7570 N. Paseo del Norte. Learn more about Prop. 123 here.
The proposition, which voters will decide in a state-wide election on May 17, would "increase education funding by $3.5 billion over the course of 10 years by allocating money from the general fund and increasing annual distributions of the state land trust permanent funds to education," according to Ballotpedia.com. The Arizona Daily Star reports that the lawsuit was originally filed back in 2010 after the state "failed to adjust the base level per-pupil funding according to inflation as required by a 2000 voter-approved proposition."
Supporters of Prop 123 say it would fulfill a long-overdue debt to Arizona schools, while opponents—notably led by Arizona State Treasurer Jeff DeWitt—say the state land trust money in question already belongs to the state's schools, according to the debate's press release.
"The Debate on Prop. 123" on Saturday will feature four speakers—two arguing for the passing of Prop. 123, and two against it. Phoenix natives J.P. Twist, Let's Vote Yes Prop. 123 chairman, and Andrew Morrill, Arizona Education Association president, will argue in support of Prop. 123, while Tucson natives Morgan Abraham, No Prop. 123 chairman, and Brian Clymer, a local attorney, will argue against it.
The debate starts at 3 p.m. and will run until 4:30 at 7570 N. Paseo del Norte. Learn more about Prop. 123 here.
Tags: prop 123 , proposition 123 , debate , tucson events , no to prop 123 , let's vote prop 123
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Message from Diane Ravitch about Opt Out from Shoot4Education on Vimeo.
The Opt Out movement, which encourages parents to pull their children out of the yearly standardized testing regimen, is alive and well, though you wouldn't know it in Arizona. Two opt out bills were proposed and went down during this year's legislative session, and our Attorney General Mark Brnovich said Arizona children cannot legally opt out of the test. That's not entirely true, but opting out is difficult enough, it hasn't caught on here in a big way like it has in some other states.The video above is a two minute talk by Diane Ravitch about why high stakes tests are problematic and why parents should consider opting their children out of the test. Ravitch is an educational historian and researcher who has written a number of books, including her very influential 2010 book, The Death and Live of the Great American School System. She is currently the President of the Network for Public Education, an organization that promotes progressive education and fights against the privatization agenda of the "education reform" movement.
Tags: Standardized testing , High stakes testing , Opt out movement , Diane Ravitch , Video
Friday, April 1, 2016
The Issues page on Donald Trump's campaign website is, well, special. It's a series of short videos, most under a minute. The Economy: 26 seconds. The Military: 23 seconds. Illegal Immigration: 56 seconds.
One of the longer videos—a minute, 21 seconds—is on our "Broken Education System." You can watch it for yourself, but for those of you who prefer the written word, the complete text is below.
So. Education, good. Common Core, bad. Local, good. Washington, D.C., bad. Other countries rank high and spend less. If we go local and spend less, we'll move up the rankings.
The only time Trump gets specific is when he talks about spending and our international ranking. He's basically right about spending. We spend more on education than almost everyone else. On testing, he gets one thing right and the rest wrong. True, our ranking on the latest international PISA test is around 30 (In another video on the page, he says our ranking is 28, but nobody ever said Trump was a numbers guy). According to him, that puts us at the bottom of the list, which is incorrect. We're right in the middle. That's still not great, but it's not the bottom.
Let's look at the scores of the countries he says are "right at the top" on the latest PISA test in 2012. (You can follow along on the official website.) First, Sweden. It's two places below us. The U.S. outscores Sweden in all three categories, Math, Reading and Science. Norway is six places above us, with slightly better scores in Math and Reading but a lower score in Science. Denmark is eight steps above Norway, mainly because it scored very high in math. In Reading, it's a tad lower than the U.S., and in Science, a tad higher.
One of the longer videos—a minute, 21 seconds—is on our "Broken Education System." You can watch it for yourself, but for those of you who prefer the written word, the complete text is below.
Without education you cannot have the American Dream. Some people say the American Dream is dead. I don’t disagree with them. The American Dream is dead. But we’re going to make it bigger and better and stronger than ever before. But again, without education, you can’t do that. So we’re getting rid of Common Core. We’re taking Common Core, it’s going to be gone. There won’t be education from Washington DC. There’ll be education locally, the love of parents, the love of these people that love their children and they’re in the area. That’s what we’re gonna do. We’ll have school boards, and we’ll have local. We’re not going to have it through Washington. So Common Core is dead, and we’re going to take education and we’re going to make it local. We’ll save money. Our education will be much better. Do you know in the world today we’re ranked number 30. Number 30. So we’re at the bottom of the list, and yet per pupil, we pay the most. You look at other countries, Denmark, Sweden, China, Norway. These are countries that are right at the top, and they spend much less money than us. So we’re going local, it’s going to be great, and we’re going to spend less money, and we’re going to move up that list very, very rapidly.The average fifth grader could get all that in one watching, even if he/she missed a thought or two the first time around, since they're all repeated three times. Most of it is pure Trump: "Some people say the American Dream is dead. I don’t disagree with them. The American Dream is dead. But we’re going to make it bigger and better and stronger than ever before." But one sentence, my favorite, is downright Sarah Palin-esque: "There’ll be education locally, the love of parents, the love of these people that love their children and they’re in the area." Sarah couldn't-a said it any better. You betcha.
So. Education, good. Common Core, bad. Local, good. Washington, D.C., bad. Other countries rank high and spend less. If we go local and spend less, we'll move up the rankings.
The only time Trump gets specific is when he talks about spending and our international ranking. He's basically right about spending. We spend more on education than almost everyone else. On testing, he gets one thing right and the rest wrong. True, our ranking on the latest international PISA test is around 30 (In another video on the page, he says our ranking is 28, but nobody ever said Trump was a numbers guy). According to him, that puts us at the bottom of the list, which is incorrect. We're right in the middle. That's still not great, but it's not the bottom.
Let's look at the scores of the countries he says are "right at the top" on the latest PISA test in 2012. (You can follow along on the official website.) First, Sweden. It's two places below us. The U.S. outscores Sweden in all three categories, Math, Reading and Science. Norway is six places above us, with slightly better scores in Math and Reading but a lower score in Science. Denmark is eight steps above Norway, mainly because it scored very high in math. In Reading, it's a tad lower than the U.S., and in Science, a tad higher.
Tags: Donald Trump , Education , PISA international test , Denmark , Norway , Sweden , China
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
A question. When I went to the University of California, tuition was pretty cheap, about $100 a year, which is about $800 in today's dollars. Actually, that was a registration fee, meaning the U.C. system didn't actually charge tuition. California's system of state colleges cost even less, and city colleges, what we call community colleges here, cost nothing. During the same time, California was in the top ten in K-12 per student spending. How was the state able to be so generous with its education back then compared to today? Were tax revenues, and tax rates, that much higher? This is a genuine question. I don't know the answer.
This isn't a new question for me, or a new source of wonder that we put so little value on educating our children that we keep cutting state funding for public higher education. But it arose today because of an article about some trouble our ex-Governor Janet Napolitano, now University of California president, is in. The U.C. system has been admitting out-of-state students who have lower qualifications than some California students who are being rejected, according to a state auditor's report.
It shouldn't be that way. The first duty of a state's college system is to educate its own students. Out-of-staters come second. But the reason is obvious. Resident tuition and fees come to $12,240 a year. In a world where earning a college degree is increasingly important, that's a prohibitively high cost, leading to the crippling debt our college students face. But as high as that is, nonresident tuition is three times higher: $37,000 a year. When the university system is cash strapped, it should be no surprise that it courts as many out-of-state high rollers as it can.
Some California legislators are Shocked! Shocked! that the universities are giving preference to out-of-state students. They're not nearly so shocked that their funding cuts have put the university on the horns of a dilemma: cut educational services and standards or figure out new sources of income, like, say, adding students who pay three times the too-high tuition paid by residents.
This isn't a new question for me, or a new source of wonder that we put so little value on educating our children that we keep cutting state funding for public higher education. But it arose today because of an article about some trouble our ex-Governor Janet Napolitano, now University of California president, is in. The U.C. system has been admitting out-of-state students who have lower qualifications than some California students who are being rejected, according to a state auditor's report.
It shouldn't be that way. The first duty of a state's college system is to educate its own students. Out-of-staters come second. But the reason is obvious. Resident tuition and fees come to $12,240 a year. In a world where earning a college degree is increasingly important, that's a prohibitively high cost, leading to the crippling debt our college students face. But as high as that is, nonresident tuition is three times higher: $37,000 a year. When the university system is cash strapped, it should be no surprise that it courts as many out-of-state high rollers as it can.
Some California legislators are Shocked! Shocked! that the universities are giving preference to out-of-state students. They're not nearly so shocked that their funding cuts have put the university on the horns of a dilemma: cut educational services and standards or figure out new sources of income, like, say, adding students who pay three times the too-high tuition paid by residents.
Tags: University of California , Janet Napolitano , College tuition , Ronald Reagan
In a world where media inundates curious and equally knowledge-absorbing millennials with strict guidelines of what it means to be a truly modern, intersectional and all together bad-ass feminist, it's easy to decide that a person is only a feminist if they fit x, y and z standards.
The topics discussed by Baby Boomer, Gen X and Millennial women and men last night at the UA's VOX: Voices for Planned Parenthood's "Multi-generational Feminism" chat at Revolutionary Grounds debunked the idea of these standards, though. Through discussing five intersectional feminist themes, participators supported the idea that a social movement as complex as feminism can't really require with a set of rules for inclusion. The five themes in questions:
The topics discussed by Baby Boomer, Gen X and Millennial women and men last night at the UA's VOX: Voices for Planned Parenthood's "Multi-generational Feminism" chat at Revolutionary Grounds debunked the idea of these standards, though. Through discussing five intersectional feminist themes, participators supported the idea that a social movement as complex as feminism can't really require with a set of rules for inclusion. The five themes in questions:
Tags: university of arizona , VOX , voices for planned parenthood , multi-generational feminism , feminism , feminism discussions
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
I don't know why Republicans think it's important enough for every Arizona child to learn to write cursive that they want to put the mandate into law. The only semi-rational reason I can come up with is the nostalgic notion that everything about education was better in the good ol' days. "When I was a boy/girl, we learned to write cursive, and dagnabit, today's children can learn it too." Where will the time for all that extra penmanship instruction and practice come from? Certainly not from Teach To The Test time, which has been sacred ground since No Child Left Behind. So it'll have to come out of less essential curriculum, like, say, science, social studies, music, art, free play. Things like that.
So what do you do if you're a Republican and don't have a salable reason for a bill other than "When I was a boy/girl, we did it that way"? You make shit up. In this case, the made-up reasons revolve around what's best for kids and their grandmas.
Let's start with the "grandma" idea, which is two giant leaps beyond ridiculous.
So what do you do if you're a Republican and don't have a salable reason for a bill other than "When I was a boy/girl, we did it that way"? You make shit up. In this case, the made-up reasons revolve around what's best for kids and their grandmas.
Let's start with the "grandma" idea, which is two giant leaps beyond ridiculous.
“Are we really wanting to dumb down our students to the point where they can’t even read a card in the mail from grandma written in cursive?” asked Rep. Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa.I love that. A curriculum without cursive is dumbed down, according to Townsend. You know who Townsend is really calling dumb? Grandma. If she wants to send cards to her grandkids and they haven't learned cursive in school, PRINT! In big block letters when they're young, then in caps and lower case when they're older. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! How hard is that? Grandma knows how to print, right?
Tags: Teaching cursive , Rep. Kelly Townsend , Rep. Brenda Barton , Steve Graham
Monday, March 28, 2016
The latest Empowerment Scholarship Account (aka Vouchers on steroids) bill looked like it was going to be delayed for another year. The Senate passed it, but the House balked. Something about everyone getting a voucher—"You get a private school voucher! You get a private school voucher! You get a private school voucher!"—seemed a bit much to some. Helping millionaires pay for their private schools crossed the line with enough House Republicans to kill it.
But never fear. The bill is back in a diminished form. It now includes every student on free or reduced lunch, which means if you're a family of four and make more than $44,863, no voucher for you. There are already other ways for students to qualify in the earlier versions of the law: those with physical or educational handicaps, ELL students, Native Americans, children of military families, students who attended a D or F-rated school, things like that. But no new vouchers for people whose income is above the free/reduced lunch level in the new bill.
If the diminished bill becomes law, I honestly don't think it's going to make a dramatic difference in the short term. Giving families with little income something like $5,000 a year to spend on education doesn't amount to much. Some students will transfer to religious private schools which have low tuition, but if you're thinking of "private school" as some kind of high achieving prep school, those are mostly way, way out of the $5,000 a year price range. If the bill passes, a few families will bail from publicly funded schools, but unless they're looking for a religious education, they'll do just as well at a nearby district or charter school.
The only reason Sen. Debbie Lesko, the sponsor of the bill, reintroduced it is to take her one step closer to her dream of universal vouchers. Every time you get the GOP elephant's privatization trunk a little further into the education tent, you get closer to cramming the entire animal inside and pushing everything else out. If she gets the new bill through, this time next year she's sure to put a new bill forward that completes the job.
Tags: Empowerment Scholarship Account , Vouchers , Sen. Debbie Lesko , Sen John McCain , Native American Education Opportunity Act
Friday, March 25, 2016
Glenn Greenwald doesn't really like other journalists.
"I tend not to have the highest opinion of other journalists, although there are a lot of really good ones," he told the Loft Cinema's audience at a special Q&A following the screening of Citizen Four on March 24. "You know, there are very narrow narratives that are permitted in mainstream media outlets. And that's why independent media and independent theaters like this one are so critical to being heard."
If you didn't know, Greenwald is the reporter who initially broke the news sharing documents that proved the National Security Association, under the Obama administration's orders, had been collecting cell phone records off millions of Verizon users phones, among other companies—including Microsoft, Apple and AT&T—communication records. You can read Greenwald's other stories and op-eds about NSA privacy infringement and general national security here.
Throughout his 30-minute Q&A Greenwald repeatedly stressed he wasn't the hero—he just broke the story. The real hero was Edward Snowden, the former Central Intelligence Agency employee and whistleblower who leaked the documents to him.
"With nothing more than an act of courage—an act of confidence—he changed the world," Greenwald said. "[He showed] the power of the individual to stand up to justice."
"I tend not to have the highest opinion of other journalists, although there are a lot of really good ones," he told the Loft Cinema's audience at a special Q&A following the screening of Citizen Four on March 24. "You know, there are very narrow narratives that are permitted in mainstream media outlets. And that's why independent media and independent theaters like this one are so critical to being heard."
If you didn't know, Greenwald is the reporter who initially broke the news sharing documents that proved the National Security Association, under the Obama administration's orders, had been collecting cell phone records off millions of Verizon users phones, among other companies—including Microsoft, Apple and AT&T—communication records. You can read Greenwald's other stories and op-eds about NSA privacy infringement and general national security here.
Throughout his 30-minute Q&A Greenwald repeatedly stressed he wasn't the hero—he just broke the story. The real hero was Edward Snowden, the former Central Intelligence Agency employee and whistleblower who leaked the documents to him.
"With nothing more than an act of courage—an act of confidence—he changed the world," Greenwald said. "[He showed] the power of the individual to stand up to justice."
Tags: the loft cinema , edward snowden , glenn greenwald , citizen four , journalism on the screen , movies , talks , tucson events , Video
