Educational Cronyism - in Oklahoma?

Who's Really Responsible for 
Oklahoma's Educational Policies 
- Dr. Barresi or the 
Foundation for Educational Excellence? 

Last month, an article was written in the Washington Post by Valerie Strauss entitled, E-mails link Bush foundation, corporations and education officials. 

An organization called In The Public Interest, submitted Freedom of Information requests for emails between State Superintendents who are members of the Chiefs for Change and Jeb Bush's Foundation for Educational Excellence (FEE) out of Florida - the organization which developed and FUNDS the Chiefs.  Yes, I'm certain this was an effort for a liberal paper to grind their ax on conservatives and free enterprise and yes, ROPE has very little in common with the liberal perspective.  It is important to note, however, that there is a difference between 'free enterprise' and 'cronyism'.  NO taxpaying citizen should sit still for government by cronyism. 

Why do we bring this information to you?  Our state superintendent, Janet Barresi, is a Chief for Change.  Consequently, her emails were part of the FOI request.  This article and the associated emails make a clear and resounding case that our State Department of Education is being run by method of 'educational cronyism'.

There are a number of very interesting emails - some of them described here by this blogger - but all of them show how the run-of-the-mill voter/taxpayer has been cut out of educational policy in Oklahoma.

Unfortunately, the Governor's office is implicit in the described situation.  Here is an email in which Dr. Barresi is communicating directly with Katie Altschuler (a policy analyst in the Governor's office whom I have seen attend state education board meetings) about the key priorities of the C4C (parallel to Dr. Barresi's C3 initiative) policy produced by the Chiefs.  This indicates with little doubt that the Governor's interest also lies in creating education policy outside her state. 

Not only that, but please note the category on the C4C chart labeled, "Human Capital".  What?  We're now a Communist country where we turn school children into a proletariat - workers that represent only the capital their work can provide the ruling class and bourgeoisie?  Does that language not trouble anyone?  Frankly, this does fit into the current educational meme - that of Common Standards and leveling the playing field for every child.

Here is another email where Dr. Barresi's Assistant Superintendent Kari White is asking the Foundation for assistance in writing their NCLB Waiver (which ROPE and MANY others asked Dr. Barresi and Governor Fallin not to take - knowing the federal strings it would attach to Oklahoma).  She also mentions the C4C initiative (C3).

I could go continue obviously, but I needn't.  It is clear.  Dr. Barresi and Governor Fallin are quite apparently ushering federal control into Oklahoma schools through an organization working arm and arm with the Obama administration in order to capitalize on the federal level education reform being pushed through to states with money from the Stimulus.  Go figure.  We're being told these reforms - completely untested and NEVER studied by Oklahoma legislators like Senator Clark Jolley (also associated with this organization as noted in the story) who placed them into state law in order to get Race To the Top (stimulus) money, are necessary for education accountability, yet can't accountability be met at the local level by boards of education?

If you ever believed our State Superintendent and Governor had the best interests of Oklahoma school children in mind, I do hope you will read the story in the Post, the associated emails and other links provided here.  No, we will never know the hearts and minds of these elected officials and as such, can not ascribe motive, however, there is a large body of evidence now available that provides great insight into the impetus of their behaviors.

I will remind our readers here that ROPE approached Dr. Barresi a number of times early on in her tenure - after endorsing her for her post - with research we had completed on the Common Core.  We were summarily dismissed.  Sad isn't it?  Legitimate researcher/parents/taxpayers given ZERO time by either the Governor's office or the State Superintendent's office, because these elected officials prefer to get their marching orders from Jeb Bush?

If this information upsets you, ROPE URGES you to contact your legislator, your STATE school board member and your LOCAL school board member.  Let them know you do not appreciate the educational cronyism inherent in our state's educational system.  Let them know that Republicans stand for local control of education - not educational takeover of schools by the federal government through regulations to which we sign on in order to use programs developed by organizations in which the parties involved have some form of personal interest.

It is VERY important to seek out your STATE BOARD MEMBER.  It is interesting to ROPE that early on in her tenure, Dr. Barresi had the State Board members sign a 'contract' stating that they would not go against 'her' education 'reform' measures.  Why is this?  Because we would lose the NCLB Waiver Chiefs for Change helped her write.  So what?  Because inside the Waiver is the A-F grading system - again, which the FEE helped her write - that calls on State Superintendents to take over 'underperforming' schools.  Take school management away from a district?  Yes.  This is an excellent way for organizations benefiting from Race to the Top school 'reform' (such as FEE, Pearson and Achieve) to sell the state programs developed outside of the state to use on local schools.  How is this LOCAL?  How can this be good for Oklahoma children? 

It isn't, but it's great for private industry and makes perfect sense actually.  The business model goes something like this:  Will promote the current Presidential administration's educational policy through a non-profit entity dedicated to assisting state school superintendents in writing parallel educational policy and training them how to convince lawmakers to write this policy into state law, all while investing money in private sector companies that develop programs to be sold to the states to meet the educational programming needs generated by implementing state education policy law.  Wow.  Way to work out a revenue stream!  Too bad the fallout for all this happens to be local school boards and children.

Ohhh, but wait!  An organization inside Oklahoma is suggesting Oklahoma do away with local school boards entirely in order to make this transition to national education policy more seamless!  The Oklahoma Academy - a conglomeration of local elites/dignitaries (including Brian Bush of OCPA, Amy Ford of the State School Board, State Representatives Leslie Osborn and Scott Martin and former Representative Chris Benge) and the hand-picked 'regular' Oklahoman, have determined to "Abolish or Consolidate Current County Structure by 2032" (page 6).  For anyone who understands Agenda 21 and the push to globalize education, this is not hard to believe, but certainly a frustrating situation for anyone who lives in the REDDEST STATE IN THE UNION.

Though we will always believe in local control of education, we might not have been so resistant to Dr. Barresi's plans for Oklahoma education if red flags hadn't gone up immediately due to the fact that the law instituting the Race to the Top reforms she is using (SB2033) - teacher/leader effectiveness, Common Core, data collection, turnaround schools - was put into place in Oklahoma (like in other states) long before any of the reforms had been written, tested or peer-reviewed.  How do you create educational policy for an entire state without results from other states that you can use to extrapolate onto yours?  It's hard to get behind initiatives that reduce children to guinea pigs.  

It seems commonsensical then to wonder what came first - the ideas of how to make money off education reform, or the education reforms themselves?  Unfortunately for Oklahoma, the reforms Dr. Barresi has been embracing through the Obama administration and the FEE are failing all across the nation.  You have but to search "what's wrong with the Common Core State Standards" to see how rife with problems this initiative has become, as more and more states find the expense doesn't warrant the mediocrity of the standards.  Then there's the turnaround of failing schools that didn't even work in Chicago - birth place of our nation's superintendent Arne Duncan. The state databases have found to be overreaching and interfering with family privacy in large ways and here in Oklahoma (as in other states) the A-F grading system has been found to be completely invalid.

Often, those of us who pay attention to politics and governance are frustrated by our inability to effect change in the system.  Now we know why.  He with the gold makes the rules.  The only thing that can stop this situation is to wake up other citizens to the fact that their liberties - THEIR CHOICES - are being threatened daily by those who have self-interest at heart.  Please, don't take us at our word - go to the links, study the documents for yourselves.  If you agree with our position, TELL EVERYONE YOU CAN about what is going on right here in Oklahoma.  Our children - OUR STATE AND INDIVIDUAL SOVEREIGNTY - is much too precious to waste!



QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION: 

• Why would Republicans sign on to a Democratic education program so readily?  Many states with Republican governors have been fighting the Obama Administrations health care and immigration policies.
• Why would Republicans commit to such a program without knowing the costs to their state for such a program?
• Why would Republicans sign on to a program that ratchets up the national debt by redistributing stimulus funds to states that sign on?
• Why would Oklahoma continue to implement these education reforms when the state was not granted a Race to the Top grant to do so?  That automatically placed the burden of cost on the backs of the Oklahoma taxpayer.
• Why lock Oklahomans into educational programming (the Common Core and associated PARCC tests) similar to Medicare that, once established, will be extremely hard to dismantle?  Once state and local taxpayers (through bond issues) have paid millions of dollars to set up these programs, they're not going to want to pay more just to undo it all.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Washington Post.  E-mails link Bush foundation, corporations and education officials - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/30/e-mails-link-bush-foundation-corporations-and-education-officials/

Chiefs for Change - http://chiefsforchange.org/

Foundation for Educational Excellence - http://excelined.org/

Oklahoma Education Truths.  Jeb, FEE, and the SDE:  Why Enanglements Matter (Part Two)  Oklahoma Education Truths - http://okeducationtruths.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/jeb-fee-and-the-sde-why-entanglements-matter-part-two/

DocumentCloud.org - http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/560792-fwd-working-document-for-esea-waiver-call.html

C3 Initiative - http://www.ok.gov/sde/about/janet-barresi

Common Core State Standards - http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards

AFT.  Common Core Standards Will Level the Playing Field - http://www.aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/at/page4commoncoreqa.cfm 

DocumentCloud.org - http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/560838-re-esea-flexibility.html

Restore Oklahoma Public Education.  ESEA Reauthorization:  Does It Even Matter? http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2012/01/esea-reauthorizationdoes-it-even-matter.html 

Oklahoma Education Truths. Jeb, FEE, and the SDE:  Why Enanglements Matter (Part One)  Oklahoma Education Truths - http://okeducationtruths.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/jeb-fee-and-the-sde-why-entanglements-matter-part-one

Restore Oklahoma Public Education.  Common Core State Standards and Race To The Top Flowchart.    http://www.scribd.com/doc/61537521/Common-Core-State-Standards-and-Race-To-The-Top-Flowchart

Restore Oklahoma Public Education. Common Core State Standards Presentation - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsNVv_iQDMM&feature=share&list=UUffrnW6WlGtduw0C7NXNWKg

OSDE.  Oklahoma State Board Members - http://ok.gov/sde/about/stateboard 

OSDE.  State Board Signs Resolution to Keep Education Reforms - http://www.scribd.com/doc/80408209/State-Board-Meeting-Passing-Resolution-To-Keep-Education-Reforms 

In The Public Interest.  NCLB Waiver Communications - http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/node/2745

Achieve.  Race to the Top - Low Performing Schools - http://www.achieve.org/files/RTTT-Low-PerformingSchools.pdf 

Foundation For Educational Excellence.  Foundation Center - http://foundationcenter.org/educationexcellence/kftf_schools.jhtml

Pearson.  Common Core Products - http://commoncore.pearsoned.com/

Achieve.  College and Career Ready Agenda -  http://achieve.org/college-and-career-ready-agenda

Oklahoma Academy - http://okacademy.org/ 

Oklahoma Academy - Abolish or Consolidate Current County Structure by 2032 - http://okacademy.org/PDFs/2012-IssueBriefs.pdf

Agenda 21 - Grinding Down America - http://www.amazon.com/Agenda-Grinding-America-Curtis-Bowers/dp/B003Z3CZGG 

UNESCO.  Education and Globalization.  http://www.iiep.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/apre98.pdf 

Restore Oklahoma Public Education. Education Accountabilty Must Originate Locally.  http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2012/05/education-accountability-must-originate.html 

SB2033.  http://www.scribd.com/doc/93232739/Sb2033-Engrossed-Version-of-School-Reform-Bill

The Columbian.  Common Core Standards Aren't Really Very Common - http://www.columbian.com/weblogs/bob-dean-says/2010/oct/19/common-core-standards-arent-really-very-common/ 

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.  Smart Brief.  http://www.smartbrief.com/news/ascd/storyDetails.jsp?issueid=5F7A6C67-6CC8-4036-97F1-A5EF6ED15D49&copyid=6B53DF3A-6E23-49B9-B580-2B77D61637E9&brief=ascd&sb_code=rss&&campaign=rss&i=5F7A6C67-6CC8-4036-97F1-A5EF6ED15D49

Restore Oklahoma Public Education.  Government Cheese. School Bonds to Pay for Common Core Expenses.   http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2013/01/government-cheese-school-bonds-to-pay.html 

EdWeek.  Spinning The Numbers on Turnaround Schools. http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2012/03/spinning_the_numbers_on_turnar.html?qs=chicago+schools+turnaround 

Restore Oklahoma Public Education.  How Much Data Is Enough Data.  http://www.scribd.com/doc/110458572/How-Much-Data-is-Enough-Data-What-happens-to-privacy-when-bureaucracies-exceed-their-scope 

Restore Oklahoma Public Education.  Oklahoma's A-F Grading System Gets an F.  http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2013/01/oklahomas-f-grading-system-gets-f.htm

Education and Party Unity - A Jumbo Shrimp Oximoron?

Well guys, the challengers for Janet Barresi's State Superintendent perch are already out of the gate!  In a very sad state of affairs, Oklahoma's own OCPA at once cast a very hard line on the candidacy of newly-announced State Superintendent challenger Donna Anderson, calling her the "Status Quo" educator.  I can only assume this is in part because not only is she, well…uh… a 'democrat', but also because she is not an acolyte of the coveted Lindsey Nicole Henry scholarship. 

It doesn't seem obvious to me how we can find the best person for the job of producing education policy for all Oklahoma children by distilling that office down to a single-issue party-line, created and promoted in part, by the same folks that signed the Common Core State Standards into Oklahoma law without reading them.  

Unfortunately, ROPE learned the hard way after supporting Janet Barresi in her bid as State Superintendent - EDUCATION IS NOT A PARTISAN MATTER!  We voted with our party registrations and got slapped hard enough on the face to make us cry - for four whole years!

ROPE's Board is populated with very conservative, God-fearing, Republican women.  None of us could conceive of ever becoming card-carrying Democrats ourselves - especially after last year's Democratic convention when attendees voted to throw God under the bus and continue to embrace the killing of unborn babies en mass.  Clearly, it would seem we have nothing of substance in common with these kinds of ideals. 

I think I speak for the entire board, however, when I say that we wouldn't hesitate to vote for a Democrat for State Superintendent if we thought he or she would actually put education first in in their commission of this office in Oklahoma - and not the Foundation for Educational Excellence out of Florida.  

Pat McGuigan, in his article on Anderson's candidacy says, "Anderson believes the ACT would be a preferable method for evaluating students leaving high schools, rather than the End-of-Instruction tests that have been controversial in recent years. In response to a question from CapitolBeatOK, Anderson said she believes – even without a legislative mandate – counselors should encourage more students to take the ACT. She said the ACT would make a good exit test for all students." 

ROPE has been saying this for years!  This simply makes good policy and fiscal sense since we already pay to administer the tests! 

Why pick a candidate apart for not supporting the Henry scholarship when that doesn't apparently fully characterize her thoughts on choice in education?

McGuigan reports, "In response to another question from CapitolBeatOK, Anderson said she that although she opposes the Henry Scholarships and use of “public dollars for private schools” she did not agree with targeting parents of special needs children in a lawsuit seeking to strike down the scholarships.  Although she opposes recent moves toward choice that includes private schools, she said “there is a place” for private schools, home schools and online education in the educational system".  

Anderson’s website contains the following quote, “Currently in Oklahoma, we are trying to make our schools and students into something they are not,” Anderson said. “The methods currently being promoted have no research based success. We do not need to model education after any other state. We need to be Oklahomans who do the hard work to find our path to success, not run frantically toward unproven methods because of a political agenda.”  

Seriously, how do you oppose that thought? That's a point taken from fact (Janet Barresi's association with Jeb Bush's Foundation for Educational Excellence) and something we actively would support - as we oppose Dr. Barresi's desire to craft Oklahoma education policy from outside the state's borders.  Neither the Common Core nor the PARCC tests they are supposed to assess were tested or studied prior to implementation in Oklahoma.  

Every year, Oklahoma Republicans reinforce the concept of LOCAL CONTROL of education in the state platform.  Every year Janet Barresi has been employed as our State Superintendent, she has forced this concept farther and farther out toward the margins of the Oklahoma Republican political fabric.  Why have a platform for Republicans to stand on if elected Republicans aren’t going to govern on that foundation – and beyond that, why support Republicans if they do not personify Republican ideals just because they have an “R” behind their name?

ROPE knows nothing about Donna Anderson and certainly this is not a campaign endorsement of any kind, just a missive to make us think.  

Why would conservative Republicans even be drawn to voting for a Democrat?  How broken is the system when we can't agree with our Republican State Superintendent on education policy, but the party that was taken over by the hard left Progressives can spawn a candidate with ideals more Republican than those our own Republicans espouse?  

What is education really about?  What's best for adults, or what's best for kids?

Can You Hear Us Now?

Today no fewer than two articles have come out in EdWeek online utilizing work that is being done by Restore Oklahoma Public Education (Pressure Mounts in Some States Against Common Core and Opposition to Common Core Grows Across the Political Spectrum).  TWO.  In a NATIONAL online education journal.

Hmmm...to what were the articles pertaining?  COMMON CORE.

It is hard for many to remember at this point - but hard for us to forget - that ROPE took it upon ourselves four years ago now (2009) to research and write about the this so-called "state led" (only to prevent the Core from being illegal as a national curricula is against federal law, not because it is in any way "state led") effort.  This, just one year after our Oklahoma legislature passed SB222 in a conglomerate bill addressing nearly every education "reform" produced by the Obama administration in order to attract Race To The Top funding.

Here are a few of my comments on those two articles that further articulates our position:

It was clear to us from the beginning that this was NEVER about kids. It is about elitist Republicans who say they eschew federal funding in public education, all the while propagating overreaching education policy generated by a Democrat-controlled federal Department of Education in order to get kickbacks and federal funding enough to enlarge their fiefdoms.

Common Core, the associated testing mechanisms (PARCC and Smarter), and the vast data collection system (State Longitudinal Data Systems or P20) being promulgated at the federal level and accepted by the states for their 30 pieces of silver, are about as much about kids and education as fishing is to space travel.

The recent expose in the Washington Post by Valerie Strauss should be the nail in the coffin that wakes up a sleeping public to realize what dupes they are in this little Kabuki theater our states call education "reform".

Heck NO this isn't about kids. None of this is about anything other than adults wanting to line their pockets on the backs of children attached to parents who don't know enough to be skeptical when the education elite of their states tell them, "Relax, we've got this covered. We know better than you what your kids need. We need to make sure our state is in line to pick up that 'free' money. After all, we send it from our state to the feds, we need to get it back somehow and if we don't do it, some other state will!"

 And:

Many governments past and present have utilized public education as a change agent for society. Disconcertingly, many of these have done it in a very similar way - using wealthy individuals and government elitists to broadcast and monopolize their message.

Many states (like Oklahoma) adopted the Common Core sight unseen. How do you as a legislator explain that to parents? "Parents, we believe that some educational standards we have never seen nor read, which were developed outside of our state by well-connected people in business and government, that have no track record at all, will be better for your child than those standards your child has in place currently through your local school board."

Awkward isn't it? This might explain why none of our authoring legislators ever bothered to explain why Oklahoma was signing on to Common Core before they planted it in state law.

Please see this blog by my colleague Danna Foreman where she found solid proof that this Common Core thingy is about changing society.

Ultimately, the goal of P-16 (a state longitudinal data base (SLDS) to collect information on children from Pre-K to 16 - now "workforce and beyond) reform is to create, as Harold Hodgkinson wrote in All One System, "a single system of education underlying all of the segments" (Institute for Educational Leadership, 1999). As the Consortium for Policy Research in Education said, the time has come to end the long history in American education of segments acting "independently and at cross-purposes from one another" (June 2000).

Wow.  This isn't at all like creating a little society full of Borgs is it - or Stepford Wives?

Truly, this has to stop.  Between the testing and the usurpation of privacy that comes with the exciting SLDS that will collect all the information any pervert (I mean person) could ever want on other people's children, not to mention the associated costs, this can not stand. 

Apparently other states are thinking the same thing.  Missouri, Indiana, Utah, California, Alabama, Washington and others are actually looking to abandon this rickety ship before it goes down and takes their children with it.  Just like so many of the states signed on sight unseen, they should jump off now, now that their eyes are being opened to the size of the iceberg they're about to hit.

School Choice? What's That?

This week is School Choice Week across the nation.  For a number of years now, Republican-based organizations from Heritage Foundation to Friedman Foundation to our own OCPA, have been calling for School Choice. 

We here at ROPE believe that parental choice is of ULTIMATE importance in the creation of education that works for students and families.  Gone should be the days in which children are locked into districts whose Board of Educations are NOT responsive to the needs of their students and parents.

After much study, however, we also believe that until the COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS (CCSS) are removed from the states that have adopted them (including OKLAHOMA) THERE CAN BE NO CHOICE IN EDUCATION!  In fact, there is no way Choice and the CCSS can exist simultaneously. 

Why would you, as a parent, move your child from one school to another when the same COMMON standards shape the curriculum at EVERY school in the district or city?  Yes, one school may have a better teaching staff, or one might be perceived to be 'safer', but if the teaching curricula of all schools are derived from the same COMMON standards, how can one school produce a more exceptional student than another?  How can schools in states who have adopted the CCSS really differentiate themselves one from another when the basis of all educational knowledge is derived from the same COMMON standards?  Where is the ability for any school to create a student that excels beyond what is "common"?

Sadly, it's not simply government schools that are effected by the COMMON CORE phenomena.

Did you know that private schools and charter schools are turning to Common Core so they will have books to use that contain "COMMON" curricula developed for the standards so private school students will have the same advantage as government school kids on tests such as ACT - which are being shaped to match the standards?  

Many large textbook companies like Pearson, threw their lot in with the Council of Chief State School Officers (a private national association) and the National Governor's Association (also a private association to which NOT all governors belong) to create and insinuate the CCSS in American government schools.  The free market is wonderful, but in this case, textbook companies with smaller market share are forced to mold their materials to the CCSS or lose business to those companies producing CCSS-aligned texts.

This also works with education retailers.  Did you know that companies who sell to the home school market, like Mardel, are selling Common Core materials?

Not only that, but what if home school students are forced to test to the Common Core as they are implemented across states?  What if universities will no longer take transcripts of home school students if they haven't been taught using the COMMON standards or they haven't taken the CCSS standardized tests?  In fact, the Home School Legal Defense Association has condemned the CCSS for these and other reasons.

In closing, why follow blindly behind School Choice advocates when there is really NO CHOICE in education as long as states are perpetuating the CCSS? 

It is important - no necessary - to make sure Republicans pushing these Obama/Duncan overreaching education reforms understand that parents understand the issue of Core vs Choice.  Let's let legislators, the media and School Choice advocates know we will NOT raise COMMON children here in Oklahoma and that Common Core is NOT OK!

 

Every child deserves better than a COMMON education!

Oklahoma's A-F Grading System Get's An "F"

Recently I read, “An Examination of the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s A-F Report Card”, commissioned by the two largest professional school organizations in the state:  the Oklahoma School Boards Association (OSBA) and the Cooperative Council for Oklahoma School Administration (CCOSA).  If you kiddos out there haven’t gotten a chance to read it yet, don’t worry, I’ll bet it will show up on the Common Core State Standards reading list with all those other exciting non-fiction reads kids are going to enjoy so much, but that’s another story.

I read the paper after reading the Daily Oklahoman editorial “Oklahoma Policymakers Shouldn’t Retreat From A-F grading System”, because it seemed a very partisan assessment.  Now don’t get me wrong, I have an opinion on this issue as well, in opposition.  After much study of the No Child Left Behind waiver (first request, final request) for which our state applied, our organization sent the offices of the State Superintendent and the Governor letters explaining why we were in disagreement.  

Our concerns stemmed from a number of sources.  As a Conservative organization, we objected to President Obama’s notion that he could ignore the Constitution and go around Congress to make his own law (waiver) simply because he believed Congress would not act to reauthorize the NCLB.   We also highly objected to the fact that results of the A-F system would cause districts to lose control of their schools to the State Department of Education and whatever contractor they saw fit to administrate those ‘failing’ schools.

It should be said, however, that after years of writing and researching education issues, I have become a near-complete cynic of either political party’s actual interest in education for the sake of educating children.  Consequently, I began to assess the article by first researching its authors.  

This gave me no sense of satisfaction as both were clearly entrenched in the University system and one is currently employed by an organization with clear Progressive leanings.  I moved on to research the origins of the citations made by the authors in support of their thesis.  Yuck.  Linda Darling-Hammond.  Darling-Hammond is a close friend of former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers, so anything she says is suspect to me.  Truly, from the beginning it didn’t seem as though I would find anything we could support in this assessment.

I have a Master’s Degree in Biology. In order to conclude my degree I was FORCED to take at least one statistics course.  Not only am I no statistician, I don’t even play one on TV, so reading the paper in its entirety was daunting.  Yet, once I began, I found most statistical jargon had been replaced by or supplemented with understandable correlations that could make sense to readers with even a basic understanding of statistical theory.

I was frustrated by my takeaway and here it is:  Any time authors of a research paper examining a particular statistical method articulate phrases such as, “perhaps a decision was made”, “no clear justification”, “basis undocumented”, “nonlinear relationship”, “basis assumes” and/or “threats to validity”, there is a problem – and not with the examiner, but the examinee.

It seems shocking, given the emphasis on STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) initiatives as a way for the Obama administration to pump more money into schools, that our own SDE doesn’t seem to understand the concepts of validity and replicability as part of scientific inquiry in any form – certainly in the creation of a statistical rubric the use of which can mean life or death of a school.

The rubric that determines the A-F letter category for each school is broken into four components; Student Achievement (33%), Individual Student Growth (17%), Growth of Bottom Quartile (17%) and Whole School Performance (33%). 

Let’s look at some of the most central concerns.

Calculation of Student Achievement

“The scores assigned to represent proficiency levels…do not seem to correspond to any recognizable metric”.  This goes to the necessity for a study to be replicable.  If a study cannot be replicated, it can’t be reliable.  In this case it was impossible for the authors to decide how the categories of Proficiency Levels were determined because there was “no clear justification” for why these categories were assigned.  This alone should be the nail in the coffin of this A-F system as categories used to assign specific value are apparently arbitrary. 

In addition, the “basis for letter grade conversion is undocumented”.  How is it that an “A” is designated as having the Performance Index Range of 90-120, but all other letter designations merit a 10 point range?  Again the sense of arbitrariness challenges the concept of validity.

       Individual Growth

      Proficiency Levels (Limited Knowledge, Satisfactory, Proficient and Advanced) are introduced into the metric to allow parents to make assumptions about student academic Growth within the school.  Proficiency Levels are assigned a numerical value and the subsequent changes in numerical value determine the degree of student academic Growth.  Because of the way Proficiency Levels are assigned in the rubric, there is no way to determine student grown within a proficiency level - “no change and negative change are accorded the same zero point value”.  

Students could go from the top of the Advanced category to the bottom, or from the bottom of the Limited Knowledge category to the top, yet no change would be reflected in the actual letter designation for the school.   Not only that, but because academic growth and proficiency levels are non-linear in nature, there can be no extrapolation from individual student to school or even classroom.  There is no way to make scientific conclusions about data that have no real cause and effect relationship.

Growth of Bottom Quartile

      Since this is a very small category, small sample size can introduce bias that may not be able to be corrected away by calculating a confidence interval, making the measure unreliable.

      Whole School Performance 

      Attendance alone determines this component in elementary schools.  This component is a full third of the entire rubric, yet there is absolutely no scientific study which shows that students learn simply by benefit of being present in a school.  How is this measure relevant?

I could continue critiquing the author’s critique, but frankly there is no reason.  As I said previously, the entire system should go the way of the Porcelain God based upon the fact that the majority of the categories and values assigned are neither replicable nor valid.

Though every informed citizen has (or should have!) an opinion about the practice of public education –education isn’t, nor should it be, a partisan issue.  It saddens us here at ROPE, however, that state establishment Republicans continually circle the wagons around our Superintendent and Governor as they push the big government ideals of the Obama Administration while marginalizing those of us who dare to contest this phenomenon.  Interesting, isn’t it?  One can only be educated by learning, and one can only learn by opening one’s mind to possibilities outside one’s own orthodoxy, yet, we see very little of that from Republican bureaucrats in Oklahoma dedicated to “education reform”.  We here at ROPE look forward to the day we are able to witness the Republican “education reform” establishment practice what they preach.  We can only ‘hope’.

BIBLIOGRAPHY (in order of use)

Linn, Robert Lee and Sternberg, Robert J.   (January 2013) 32 pp.  An Examination of the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s A-F Report Card. http://www.tulsaworld.com/webextra/content/items/AFreportresearchstudy.pdf

Ravitch, Diane (Dec. 31, 2012)  Common Core And The Fiction Non-Fiction Question. http://dianeravitch.net/2012/12/31/common-core-and-the-fictionnon-fiction-question/

Editor, Daily Oklahoman Online. (Jan. 22, 2013) http://newsok.com/oklahoma-policymakers-shouldnt-retreat-from-a-f-grading-system/article/3747866

White, Jenni.   Bibliography, Literature List for NCLB Research http://www.scribd.com/doc/79042750/WebNotes-Literature-List-for-NCLB-NEW

Department of Education.  (Feb. 8, 2012) WWW2.Ed.Gov. http://www2.ed.gov/policy/eseaflex/approved-requests/ok.pdf

Oklahoma State Department of Education website.  (Feb. 8, 2012) Ok.Gov. http://ok.gov/sde/sites/ok.gov.sde/files/FinalRequest.pdf

Restore Oklahoma Public Education.   (Sept. 8, 2011) Letter to Education Officials – Please Do NOT Apply For An NCLB Waiver For Oklahoma.  http://www.scribd.com/doc/64376597/Letter-to-Education-Officials-Please-Do-NOT-Apply-for-an-NCLB-Waiver-for-Oklahoma

Kelsey, Mike and Grimard, Leslie.  (Sept. 27, 2011)  Obama Waives Congress Away.  Heritage Foundation.  http://blog.heritage.org/2011/09/27/obama-waives-congress-away/

Restore Oklahoma Public Education.  (May 2, 2012) A-F Grading System Disapproval. http://www.scribd.com/doc/92729432/Disapproval-of-a-F-Grading-System

Chumley, CC.  (May 1, 2007)  No Shock, Just Facts: Liberal Indoctrination on Campus.  Human Events.  http://www.humanevents.com/2007/05/01/no-shock-just-facts-liberal-indoctrination-on-campus/

Garner, Donna.  (January 6, 2013)  Linda Darling-Hammond and Bill Ayers are closely associated with Columbia Teachers’ College where the social justice agenda is heavily enmeshed throughout the College.  Education News online.  http://educationviews.org/linda-darling-hammond-bill-ayers-cscope-lucy-calkins-ccs/

www.WhiteHouse.gov.  (Nov. 23, 2009)  President Obama Launches “Educate to Innovate” Campaign for Excellence in Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM) Education. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-launches-educate-innovate-campaign-excellence-science-technology-en

Shuttleworth, Martyn.  (2008)  The Principles of Validity and Reliability are Fundamental Cornerstones of the Scientific Method.  Explorable.com  http://explorable.com/validity-and-reliability.html

White, Michael.  (Dec. 29, 2010)  Scientific Method in Decline?  Science2.0.com  http://www.science20.com/adaptive_complexity/scientific_method_decline