Archive | May, 2024

A Conversation on the Science of Reading

27 May

By Thomas Ultican 5/27/2024

Two eminent professors of instruction and literacy teamed up to write “Fact-Checking the Science of Reading.” P David Pearson of UC Berkeley and Robert J. Tierney of University of British Columbia are Emeritus Professors with high reputation in their respective countries.

In the introduction, they inform us that Emily Hanford’s 2022 “Sold a Story” podcasts motivated them to write. In particular, they noted:

  1. “A consistent misinterpretation of the relevant research findings; and
  2. “A mean-spirited tone in her rhetoric, which bordered on personal attacks directed against the folks Hanford considered to be key players in what she called the Balanced Literacy approach to teaching early reading.” (Page XIV)

Their book presents 10 claims related to science of reading (SoR), each followed up with a three-step evaluation: “a) Unpacking the evidence presented for its validity; b) Offering our reading of the evidence; and c) Concluding with a revised version of the claim that we can support.”

An Example

The 5th claim cited states, “The Three-Cueing System (Orthography, Semantics and Syntax) has been soundly discredited.”

Orthography uses phonics type approaches to sound out unknown words. Does it look right? With the second cue, syntactic, a student tries to understand what is written. Does it sound right? What would make it conform to grammar rules? Semantics is the last of the three cues. Does it make sense?

The authors presented three pages of evidence about claim 5. For example they shared:

“Consequently poor readers fail to develop the decoding skills necessary for facile word identification, and their accuracy and fluency appear to flounder. Good readers, on the other hand, are able to successfully enlist phonemic awareness and the letter-sound correspondences to decode, and then understand, words. These differences between good and poor are taken as evidence that accurate and automatic word recognition is key to developing fluent reading for meaning. This view lends credence to the argument that phonics is the more expeditious approach to beginning reading expertise—and that approaches enlisting multiple cueing systems are flawed, misguided and perhaps even harmful to young readers (Hanford, 2018; 2019; Moats, 2000) (Page 57)

They, with years of experience studying reading education, noted:

“Criticisms of the three-cueing system are based on a combination of anecdotal evidence and opinion (Seidenberg, 2017; Moats, 2000), including extrapolations from static comparisons of the strategies of good and poor readers. They do not examine specific interventions involving the three-cueing system, such as the Interactive Strategies Approach (Vellutino & Scanlon, 2002; Scanlon et al., 2024), or the work of Marie Clay (1993: 1998) on Reading Recovery.” (Page 57)

The two quotes above came from the “unpacking the evidence presented for its validity” section of evaluation. Their next section, “offering our reading of the evidence”, stated:

“The only way we can make sense of the arguments marshaled against the three-cueing system is to infer that the opponents object to its use in pedagogy rather than in reading theory. Many of the most vocal critics of the three-cueing system either espouse or support models of the expert reading process that posit an important role for all three of these information sources.” (Page 58)

This part became fairly dense with descriptions and graphics for three reading models, David Rumelhart’s Interactive Model of Reading, PB Gough’s One Second of Reading Model and Rumelhart’s & McClelland’s Parallel Distributed Processing Model. Interestingly, these employed all three of the Three-Cueing domains: Semantics, Syntactic and Orthography. Today, the models are widely praised by many of those objecting to the Three-Cueing system.

They concluded “reading of the evidence” by stating, “Significant support for a more inclusive orientation has also emerged from several studies comparing multiple cueing approaches with singular emphasis on phonics,” citing examinations of the Interactive Strategies Approach (ISA) by Vellutino and Scanlon 2002, Scanlon and Anderson 2020 and Scanlon et al. 2024. It is a plan that intends to help readers develop word-solving strategies and uses orthographic, phonological, syntactic, semantic and lexical cues. (Page 63)

Pearson and Tierney asserted:

“Drawing from 25 years of research regarding the use of this approach with beginning and struggling readers as well as middle grade students, they found that the ISA, more so than other approaches, offers readers a form of self-teaching. This advantage supports readers’ successful, ongoing enlistment of phonics for word learning in the context of their engagement with ‘natural’ texts (i.e., texts that are not contrived to ensure a preset repetition of selected words or word families, or not specifically designed for research purposes).” (Page 64)

The final part of their analysis created a revised version of the claim they can support. The authors don’t disparage the claim. Rather they state:

“To rely on extrapolations from comparisons of good and poor readers while ignoring research on the efficacy of multiple cueing pedagogical approaches seems short-sighted. Prudently, in her discussions of cueing systems, Adams (1998) did not deny their possible role, but instead suggested the need for more research on their use with beginning readers. We believe that the work of Scanlon and her colleagues (2024) has answered Adams’ call by demonstrating that a ‘full tool box’ of word solving strategies, as reflected in their ISA interventions, enhances word solving, word reading, orthographic mapping, and understanding connected text.”

Pearson and Tierney do not agree that Three-Cueing has been soundly discredited; they provide evidence that cueing systems are successful teaching strategies. For example, when developing student comprehension, focusing primarily on phonics instruction does not measure up to cueing systems.

Settled Science is an Oxymoron

Science is a natural commitment to modesty “is always provisional; ever-ready to be tweaked, revised, or replaced by the next theoretical insight or empirical findings.” As Reinking, Hruby and Risko (2023) stated “settled science is an oxymoron.” In the case of SoR, not only is it not settled science, many literacy researchers believe it is a substandard approach. (Page 20)

SoR advocates say when teaching reading, the “settled science” of phonics “first and fast”, should be applied. They are working to make it against the law to disagree, claiming other forms of instruction cause child harm. SoR reading theory may have some holes but their political power is unquestioned and global. Laws mandating SoR have been enacted in 40 US states, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other English-speaking countries. These rules limit teacher autonomy and attempt to make reading a scripted subject. (Page XII)

The Orwellian labeled science of reading (SoR) is not based on sound science. It more accurately should be called “How to Use Anecdotes to Sell Reading Products.” In 1997, congress passed legislation, calling for a reading study. From Jump Street, establishment of the National Reading Panel (NRP) was a doomed effort. The panel was given limited time for the study (18 months) which was a massive undertaking, conducted by twenty-one unpaid volunteers. NRP fundamentally did a meta-analysis in five reading domains, ignoring 10 other important reading domains. In other words, they did not review everything and there was no new research. They simply searched for reading studies and averaged the results to give us “the science of reading.”

SoR’s real motivation is to sell products, not helping children struggling to read. Scholars like Pearson and Tierney are ignored and swept away by a podcaster with no credentials.

For the sake of the future, we must stop legally mandating SoR as a solution to a fraudulent “reading crisis” and put our trust in education professionals.

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Henry Barnard and the Department of Education

21 May

By Thomas Ultican 5/21/2024

In 1867, Henry Barnard was appointed the first Commissioner of the new US Department of Education. Today that position is called Secretary of Education. The Department came into being with President Johnson’s signature on March 2nd and was followed by Barnard’s being sworn in as Commissioner on March 11th. Powerful forces opposed to a federal takeover of schools abolished the department on July 20, 1868. It officially became the Bureau of Education, attached to the Department of Interior, where it remained until 1979.  Barnard continued as Commissioner of the Bureau until March 15, 1870. (BARNARD Pages 106-108)

Henry Barnard’s contribution to establishing the common school system and the ideals of pedagogy in America and Europe were remarkable. Boone, an early 2oth century writer, stated that “in magnitude and detail, in permanency of result and general cooperation, Barnard’s work in Rhode Island was scarcely second to that of Horace Mann in Massachusetts.” (Barnard Page 61)

Barnard’s Early Life

On January 24, 1811, Henry was born at home in Hartford, Connecticut and was named after his is father, a well-to-do Puritan farmer. His mother, the former Elizabeth Andrus, unfortunately died when Henry was just four. Still he wrote, “It was my blessed inheritance to be born in a family in which chore-doing and mutual help was the rule and habit and happiness.” There were siblings, at least one brother and one sister.  (Barnard Page 7)

Hartford Connecticut Home Where Henry Barnard was Born and Died

In the late 1600s, Connecticut’s Governor Hopkins founded the Hartford Grammar School that Henry attended. He detested that school but would later change his mind, realizing it was “a school of equal rights, where merit, and not social position, was the acknowledged basis of distinction and therefore the fittest seminary to give the schooling essential to the American citizen.” At 13 years old, he transferred to Monson Academy in Hampton County, Massachusetts. (Barnard Page 8)

Fifteen year old Henry entered Yale in 1826 and graduated with a bachelors of arts in 1830. He would return to Yale in 1833 to study law and was admitted to the Bar in 1835.

Barnard was sent home from Yale for his part in the 1828 “bread and butter rebellion”, over poor food in the mandatory dining hall. During this short stay at home, his sister became ill. It was then that Henry first learned of the Pestalozzi from her attending physician, Dr. Eli Todd. The doctor was acquainted with American Pestalozzian, William McClure, and both shared a high opinion of the Swiss educator. (Barnard Page 11)

Upon his graduation, Yale President, Jeremiah Day, advised Henry to teach school for a year. He took a teaching position in Tioga County, Pennsylvania. This would be his only classroom teaching experience but it gave him a deeper perspective of pedagogy than other school reformers of his day. (Barnard Page 14)

After leaving Tioga County and before returning home to Hartford, he made a tour of Auburn, Ithaca, Niagara, and Rochester. It was the first of many important trips he would take.

Political and Professional Life

Barnard became an ardent Whig. The Whig party appeared around 1830 in opposition to the Democratic President, Andrew Jackson. Henry’s strong anti-Jackson feelings were expressed in speeches and by his attendance at the 1831 Whig convention as a delegate. (Barnard Page 14) Illinois Congressman, Abraham Lincoln, was also a Whig.

In 1837, without running for office, he was elected as one of two Hartford delegates to the Connecticut general assembly. Horace Mann of Massachusetts described him as having “fine powers of oratory, wielding a ready and able pen, animated by a generous and indomitable spirit, willing to spend and be spent in the cause of benevolence and humanity.” (Barnard Page 24)

Barnard introduced a bill “to provide for the better supervision of the common schools.” This law created a state committee to supervise schools and Barnard was appointed the new Secretary of the Connecticut Education Committee. (Barnard Page 26)

Washington DC Normal School

He was convinced the quality of educator in America’s common schools must be improved, writing, “No one sends a shoe to be mended, or a horse to be shod, or a plow to be repaired, except to an experienced workman, and yet parents will employ teachers who are to educate their children for two worlds,” without their careful training. (Barnard Page 44)

Henry’s two main focuses became the development of normal schools for teacher training and graded schools for children. He outlined the graded schools: 1) primary schools, with the “teachers all females and the children below 8 years of age”, 2) secondary schools, comprising children from 8 to 12 years of age and 3) high schools for boys and girls. To achieve these goals he attended hundreds of meetings with community members where he gave eloquent and inspiring speeches. (Barnard Page 29)

Barnard also spoke to these issues in other states. He had made such a convincing two-hour speech supporting graded schools in Barre, Massachusetts, that Horace Mann offered, “If you will deliver that in 10 places, I’ll give you $1,000.” (Barnard Page 48)

In 1842, Barnard and the common-school education system suffered a setback. A new Democratic administration swept the Whigs out of power in Connecticut and neither he nor the system was popular with the Democrats. (Barnard Page 49)

Horace Mann reported:

“Four years ago a new System was established in Connecticut which was most efficiently and beneficently administered under the auspices of one of the ablest best of men: but it is with unspeakable regret that I am compelled to add that within the last month all his measures for improvement have been suffered to fall.” (Barnard Page 48)

Rhode Island quickly took advantage of Connecticut’s firing Barnard. In 1843, Rhode Island Governor, James Fenner, invited him to “test the practicability of his own plans of educational reform.” Over the next four years he organized a “revolution in the public opinion and the educational system of the State; a revolution which is without a parallel …” (Barnard Page 54)

Following Barnard’s death on July 5, 1900, the Hartford Courant shared:

  • Yale 1826-1830
  • Admitted to the Connecticut Bar 1835
  • Nominated without his knowledge to serve in the Connecticut legislature and was elected 1837
  • Ushered through with unanimous support laws to provide better supervision by establishing the Board of Commissioners of Common Schools. After originally declining to lead the commission he took the post 1838 
  • Visited Europe 7 times to study education. Corresponded with Marshall, Clay and Webster. He met with Wordsworth, Lockhart, De Quincey, Carlyle and others.
  • Secretary of Connecticut State Board of Education 1838-42
  • Superintendent of schools in Rhode Island 1843-49
  • Superintendent Connecticut State Normal School and secretary of the board of education 1850-54
  • President of the state university of Wisconsin 1857-63
  • President of St. John’s College, Annapolis 1865-66
  • US commissioner of education 1867-70

The Courant’s memorial stated,

“The work of Dr. Barnard, which is monumental, and with which his name will be associated in all coming time, is his work in educational literature, as a writer, editor and publisher. He has done more than any man before or since to give to the English speaking world the best thoughts of the world on education. His collected writings include 52 volumes, averaging 500 pages, comprising 800 individual treatises. The article on school architecture alone had a circulation of more than 10,000 copies.”

There was one disagreement between Mann and Barnard. In spring of 1943, Mann and his new bride, Mary Peabody, took a European honeymoon. He was captivated by the schools he saw in Prussia (Democracy’s Schools Page 104). On the contrary, Barnard found that Prussian students were, “subjected to the depressing and repressing influences of a despotic government and of a state of society in which everything is fixed both by law and the iron rule of custom.” (Barnard Page 48)

The author of Henry Barnard’s Interior Department biography, Barnard C. Steiner, wrote this tribute:

“The greatest contribution  yet made by the United States to the uplifting-genius of the world’s progress was the establishment of the free public school supported by general taxation and directed by the State, and Horace Mann and Henry Barnard were ‘the men to whom America owes the organization of the public-school system.’” (Barnard Page 32)

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A Call for Segregation, Exclusion and Caste

8 May

By Thomas Ultican 5/8/2024

Republicans, following the lead of Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo, are out to end Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs. The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, wrote on X, “DEI is just another word for racism.” Rufo’s and Musk’s central complaint is DEI unfairly harms white people. Billionaire hedge-fund manager, Bill Ackman, wrote, “DEI is racist because reverse racism is racism, even if it is against white people.”  It is easy to conclude, these men are calling for policies leading back to 1876 and segregation, exclusion and caste (SEC).

Bill Ackman is not a GOP shill. He is a neoliberal who has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Al Gore, Barack Obama and Pete Buttigieg. When Musk responded to a post on X, blaming Jews for flooding countries in the West with “hordes of minorities,” calling it “actual truth,” Ackman leaped to his defense with “Elon Musk is not an antisemite.” This is as hard to believe as Republicans are warriors against anti-Semitism. After all, the Republican Party is the main vector for the anti-Semitic “replacement theory.” A theory claiming Jews are involved in a plot to inundate the U.S. with undocumented immigrants who will “replace” the ebbing white majority and keep the GOP out of power.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal about his role in bringing down Harvard’s first ever black female President, Claudine Gay, Rufo ignored claims of plagiarism and anti-Semitism brought against her and focused on efforts ending DEI in higher education. Gay’s chief critic was Bill Ackman. In a long statement, he claimed DEI was the “root cause” of anti-Semitism at Harvard.

Ending DEI at College

Medical Schools Do Not Want Students Who Look and Think Alike

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports at least 82 bills opposing DEI in higher education have been filed in 20 states since 2023. Twelve of them became law in Idaho, Indiana, Florida, Texas and other states lead by GOP politicians. Kevin Stitt, the Governor of Oklahoma, signed an executive order in December, ending spending on DEI, claiming:

“Encouraging our workforce, economy, and education systems to flourish means shifting focus away from exclusivity and discrimination, and toward opportunity and merit. We’re taking politics out of education and focusing on preparing students for the workforce.”

The OU student newspaper reported, “Offices that are focused on African American, Hispanic, or LGBTQ+ students likely violate the Executive Order.”

Florida has a long dark history of racism, ranging from fighting in the civil war for rights to own black people to the 1923 Ocoee massacre that powerful Floridians are trying to hide. Totally in keeping with this racist past, Tallahassee Democrat reported the DeSantis administration pushed to gut diversity, equity and inclusion programs in higher education. In May 2023, the Governor signed a bill banning state public colleges and universities from spending money on DEI. He asserted:

“This bill says the whole experiment with DEI is coming to an end in the state of Florida. We are eliminating the DEI programs.”

In June 2023, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill, dismantling DEI programs in higher education. It was introduced into the state senate by State Senator Brandon Creighton. Afterwards, Creighton claimed, “With this bold, forward-thinking legislation to eliminate DEI programs, Texas is leading the nation, and ensuring our campuses return to focusing on the strength of diversity and promoting a merit-based approach where individuals are judged on their qualifications, skills, and contributions.”

Dallas Morning News reported:

“The bill was challenged by Democrats every step of the way, from the Senate higher education subcommittee to the House floor. But starting in January 2024, Texas campuses must eliminate DEI offices, mandatory DEI statements and training.”

Abbott also signed a related law, reducing tenure protection for college professors. As a result, higher education institutions in Texas are finding it more difficult to attract top professors.

Stephanie Saul of the New York Times notes that some schools are finding workarounds to mitigate damage. Whereas both University of Florida and University of Texas ended their DEI programs and terminated administrators and staff, Florida State University and University of Tennessee took steps to save employees and continue some valuable services that would otherwise be lost.

Florida State University did it mostly by changing title names and reclassifying positions of employees, already working in DEI to give them new roles; an approach that did not require laying anyone off. This left in place some of the previous DEI department’s work. The school reshuffled jobs and turned the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Office into the Office of Equal Opportunity Compliance and Engagement.

At University of Tennessee, the DEI program is now called Division of Access and Engagement. The newly named department is still working to diversify the campus and beat back injustice. Unfortunately Tennessee lawmakers have become wise to the workaround. A bill introduced in January specifically stated that no such offices should be operating “regardless of name or designation.” White GOP lawmakers are steadfastly opposed to diversity, equity and inclusion. They see it as a “WOKE” plot foisted on them by liberals.

Corporations and DEI

Corporations Value Diversity

Surprisingly America’s corporations are quite bullish on DEI. Taylor Tedford of the Washington Post shared, “In his annual letter to shareholders this year, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon emphasized that DEI ‘initiatives make us a more inclusive company and lead to more innovation, smarter decisions and better financial results for us and for the economy overall.’” Many large companies tout DEI as leading to business success. A 2023 study of 1200 firms by McKinsey & Company found organizations with the highest racial, ethnic and gender representation are 39% more likely to outperform. A Moody’s study found companies with greater diversity on their boards and in executive leadership have higher ratings.

However conservative opponents of DEI are attacking corporations in court. Last September, a federal judge in Washington State threw out the lawsuit alleging Starbucks violated its duty to shareholders by endeavoring to diversify its workforce. The suit was based on the company’s goals of hiring more people of color, attracting diverse suppliers and tying executive pay to achieving diversity goals.

Growing legal, social and political attacks cause some organizations to delete DEI from public view. They are not necessarily abandoning it but rewriting policies that once emphasized race and gender to prioritize inclusion for all.

Opinion

Manhattan Institute’s, Christopher Rufo, worked at Discovery Institute, dedicated to replacing Darwinian biology with “intelligent design”. There, he developed a talent for tapping into white insecurities with racially dishonest tropes, like abuse of critical race theory (CRT). As the CRT furor began to wane, Rufo turned to another racially-sensitive topic, reframing DEI as being against white people.

Sadly the GOP, which used to have ideals and ethics, joined this campaign. The fact is non-white males and women are not competing on a level playing field when it comes to hiring, admittance to training programs or gaining promotions. DEI programs work to rectify this. Now, Republicans are turning this on its head, claiming it is the “WOKE” agenda of liberals working against white people. This racially-tinged attack on women and minorities demonstrates how bankrupt the GOP ideology has become.

Doubtlessly there are some legitimate grievances with DEI but that does not mean it should be destroyed. Some aspects of the movement may need reformation but America needs this tool. Instead of lamenting people who are different, we need to awaken to the fact that these differences should be celebrated as the key to our greatness.

Conservative lawmakers have set themselves up by opposing diversity, fighting against equal opportunity and ignoring inclusion.

Their fight against DEI is not a good look … it appears racist, caring only about whites.

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Reselling NCLB … No Kidding!

1 May

By Thomas Ultican 5/1/2024

Neoliberals joined with libertarians to “reform” public education. Their tools were big money and propaganda distributed by media outlets like The 74, support by The Walton family (EIN 13-3441466) and Bill Gates (EIN 56-2618866). This year, regular columnist for The 74, Chad Aldeman, is trying to claim that lifting No Child Left Behind (NCLB) school accountability sanctions is responsible for the public school testing “data decline”.

Aldeman came east from the University of Iowa, with his BA in Public Policy, to gain a Masters in Public Policy from William and Mary University. His first job in 2008 was with the neoliberal Education Sector which states, “Since our founding in 2005, Education Sector has established our expertise in key issue areas—including educational choice, human capital, K–12 accountability, and higher education—and gained credibility as an independent leader in the field.” (emphases added)

After three years, Aldeman joined Arne Duncan’s Department of Education as a Confidential Assistant and left the Department in 2012 for neoliberal oriented Bell Weather Education Partners as a Principal, working there until 2020.

Diane Ravitch said of Bell Weather in 2016:

“Bellwether, co-founded by Andrew Rotherham, is a leading force in the corporate reform movement. Rotherham has been a columnist for TIME. Currently he is on the board of Campbell Brown’s THE 74.

“Among its clients: TN Achievement School District, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, NewSchools Venture Fund, Rhode Island Department of Education, Stranahan Foundation, Walton Family Foundation, Stand for Children, CEE-Trust, Goodwill Education Initiatives, Harmony Public Schools (Gulen charter schools), TNTP, Rocketship Education (charter chain), KIPP, IDEA charter schools, The Mind Trust, Chiefs for Change, TeachPlus, and the Black Alliance for Education Options.”

 I used this quote, because Bellweather’s list of clients has gotten much larger, extra disgusting but not more illuminating.

Bottom-line: Aldeman is steeped in anti-public school dogma.

Going on the Attack

 Aldeman’s latest piece for The 74 is called “Gaps Widening Between Indiana’s Highest- and Lowest-Performing Students,” claiming that since approximately 2013 education outcomes as measured by test scores were bad. He stated gaps between highest- and lowest-performing students were widening while overall scores declined and this was not just an Indiana problem but a national one.

The following is one of his graphs, Indiana 4th grade reading outcomes.

Chad Aldeman Graph from The 74

In the article he stated from 2003 to 2015, the average gains went up by 7 points and from 2015 to 2022, the average losses were 10 points. What he did not mention was where the test data came from and what its maximum scale was. If this happened to be a testing performance based on a 1,000 point scale, a 10 point change is fairly meaningless even if you believe in standards-based testing.

To check if there was any reality to Aldeman’s graph, I interrogated data from the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). Using free lunch as a proxy for low-performing students, both national data and Indiana data for 4th grade reading was graphed. NAEP, known as the nation’s report card, has given the same type of reading exams since 1992. Indiana changed its ELA testing regime in 2018 which makes evaluating data from 2010 when the last testing method was adopted, difficult to impossible. It lacks continuity.

Reading data is scored on a 500 point scale. Scores above 250 and below 190 are meaningless for the 4th grade reading test. Testing score gaps between students eligible for free lunch and those not, in the US, wavered between 26 and 28 points. In Indiana, it varied from 20 to 23 points with one outlier in 2019 at 27 points. The gap between top and bottom has been unchanged within a 3 or 4 point range. Since 1992, 4th grade reading data average for the nation has wiggled up and down within a ten point range. The first test data in 1992 came in at a 217 points average and was also 217 points in 2022.

 From 1970 to 1992, America’s schools showed slow but steady improvement in education-testing outcomes but since the era of standards, testing and accountability, improvement basically stopped. Education, run by billionaires and politicians instead of educators, failed to improve testing outcomes.

What Happened?

Alderman stated in his latest article that it is not just an Indiana problem but that “49 of 50 states, the District of Columbia and 17 out of 20 of the large cities that participated in NAEP … saw a widening of their achievement gap over the last decade.” He did not share which tests showed widened achievement gaps nor which cohorts were compared. NAEP reports on reading scores for 4th and 8th grade do not show a significant change in scoring gaps between Black and White students and comparisons in other ethnic groups also were steady.

After asking what has caused this (non-existent) achievement gap increase, Alderman posited several possible reasons: Common Core state standards (CCSS), per-pupil spending, technology and social media. He said the timing for CCSS fit but did not explain why states where CCSS was never adopted had the same problem. For per-pupil spending, he claimed that more money was getting to classrooms, which defies education-spending reports, making his claim a little shady. For technology and social media, he said other countries with similar problems, did not see testing declines … a declaration made with no evidence cited.

He finally made his real point, “I argue that the weakening of school accountability pressures after the No Child Left Behind Act was passed is responsible for a large portion of the drop.” Those of us, who were in classrooms and witnessed the test-and-punish philosophy damage to public education, disagree. How many great public schools were labeled “failures and closed” because they existed in low income zip codes?

If this decline were real, wouldn’t the privatization of public education be the most likely culprit? Charter schools came first followed by vouchers and more charter schools. Data clearly shows that vouchers harm student-testing performance. Furthermore both charter schools and voucher schools leech money from public education budgets.

Conclusions

The 74 was founded in 2015 by former CNN news anchor, Campbell Brown, along with Michael Bloomberg’s education advisor, Romy Drucker. Its original funding came from the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation,  Walton Family Foundation, Doris and Donald Fisher Fund and Bloomberg Philanthropies. Since then, it has been the vehicle for spreading the billionaire message of privatization and undermining public schools.

Some billionaires see the non-sectarian nature of public education as a threat to their dreams of a Christian theocracy. Others are libertarians that oppose free universal public education, believing everyone should pay one’s own way and not steal people’s private properties using taxation. The Neoliberals are convinced that education should be run like a business and react to market forces.

Responding to the mission of The 74, Chad Aldeman’s series of articles, like those of many of his colleagues, are pure propaganda, shaping data to support his neoliberal ideology instead of honestly reporting facts. Unfortunately this kind of fake “journalism” is flooding email boxes and web pages throughout America every day.

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