Re: Fw: hickok

[Peter Campbell <campbellp@mail.montclair.edu>]

On Jun 1, 2006, at 5:41 PM, Gerald Bracey wrote:

> Easy for them to say.  With whom will the states do this?  We
> have more capacity to search each cargo container arriving in
> the U. S. by ship than we do for determining if the SES
> providers are doing what they claim they can do.  Illinois has
> one person to oversee all providers. Most states are not much
> better off.  All that "the state should/shall/will" crap from
> the feds is just that.
>
> Crap.

What Jerry argues is in evidence by the Federal Department of  
Education's own report from February 2006. You can read it at http:// 
www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/disadv/title1interimreport/execsum.pdf

- 15 states had not established any monitoring process of SES  
providers at all. This is by the Fed's own admission. Imagine what is  
actually happening.

- 25 states had not yet established any standards for evaluating  
provider effectiveness. Again, this is what the Feds are actually  
telling us.

- Here's the kicker: none, i.e., not a single state in the union, had  
finalized their evaluation standards. This, he said, beating the very  
dead horse, is what the Feds themselves admit to.

According to the ED report, 17 states said they will evaluate student  
achievement on state assessments as a result of SES, although only  
one of these plans to use a matched control group. The most common  
approaches that states have implemented to monitor providers,  
according to the federal report, are surveying the districts about  
provider effectiveness (25 states) and using providers’ reports on  
student-level progress (18 states).

So 25 states are going to survey the districts, i.e., perform  
customer service analysis, and ask them whether or not the SES  
providers were "effective." That's nice. While they're at it, why  
don't they also survey the districts and ask them whether or not the  
public school teachers were "effective." What's that you say? There  
would be no evidence to corroborate those claims of effectiveness if  
you simply asked the districts what they thought of their teachers? I  
see. So we need evidence of public school teacher effectiveness under  
the mindless draconian machinations of NCLB and high-stakes  
standardized tests by fetishizing AYP, but all we need to know about  
SES providers is whether districts think they are effective or not.  
How comforting.

But for those 18 states that choose to let the providers themselves  
issue reports on student-level progress, all I can say is this: have  
I got a bridge to sell you.

---
Peter Campbell