Jersey Jazzman

• What's Really Happening In Camden's Schools? July 25, 2019
  This latest series on Camden's schools is in three parts:Part IPart IIPart III (this post)I want to wrap up this series of posts about Camden's schools with a look at the latest CREDO report, which the supporters of recent "reforms" keep citing as proof of those reforms' success.Long time readers know the CREDO reports, issued by […]
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• Camden, Charter Schools, and a Very Big Lie July 23, 2019
  This latest series on Camden's schools is in three parts:Part IPart II (this post)Part III Let's get back to the deeply flawed editorial from this week's Star-Ledger that I wrote about yesterday. In that post, I explained how "creaming" -- the practice of taking only those students who are likely to score high on standardized tests -- […]
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• How Student "Creaming" Works July 22, 2019
  This latest series on Camden's schools is in three parts:Part I (this post)Part IIPart IIIThere is, as usual, so much wrong in this Star-Ledger editorial on Camden's schools that it will probably take several posts for me to correct all of its mistakes. But there's one assertion, right at the very top, that folks have been making […]
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• Who Put the "Stakes" In "High-Stakes Testing"? July 8, 2019
  Peter Green has a smart piece (as usual) about Elizabeth Warren's position on accountability testing. Nancy Flanagan had some smart things to say about it (as usual) on Twitter. Peter's piece and the back-and-forth on social media have got me thinking about testing again -- and when that happens these days, I find myself running […]
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• The Facts About Newark's Schools: An Update June 30, 2019
  Thanks to, among other things, Cory Booker's presidential campaign, Newark's schools remain in the spotlight. Back in 2017, Bruce Baker and I released Newark’s Schools: The Facts in an attempt to give some context to the topic. The report is admittedly long, but the story of Newark's schools can't be told in a few talking points.That said, […]
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• Things Education "Reformers" Still Don't Understand About Testing June 24, 2019
  There was a new report out last week from the education "reform" group JerseyCAN, the local affiliate of 50CAN. In an op-ed at NJ Spotlight, Executive Director Patricia Morgan makes an ambitious claim:New Jersey students have shown significant improvements in English Language Arts (ELA) and math across the grade levels since we adopted higher expectations […]
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• NJ's Student Growth Measures (SGPs): Still Biased, Still Used Inappropriately June 1, 2019
  What follows is yet another year's worth of data analysis on New Jersey's student "growth" measure: Student Growth Percentiles (SGPs).And yet another year of my growing frustration and annoyance with the policymakers and pundits who insist on using these measures inappropriately, despite all the evidence.Because it's not like we haven't looked at this evidence before. […]
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• NJ Public Workers' Health Benefits Are NOT Overly Generous: Some More Evidence May 26, 2019
  Warning: This one's going to get wonky...The anti-public worker political wing in New Jersey -- which includes nearly all the state's Republicans and the machine Democrats -- spends a good part of its time trying to convince the state's citizens that health care benefits for teachers, cops, and other public workers are way too generous.You'll hear […]
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• Stuff Journalists Should Know About Charter Schools May 19, 2019
  I can't say I'm surprised, but it looks like Bernie Sanders' latest policy speech on education – where, among other things, he calls for a ban on for-profit charter schools and other charter school reforms -- has generated a lot of fair to poor journalism that purports to explain what charters are and how they […]
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• How NOT To Evaluate Education Policy: A Newark Example May 4, 2019
  One thing I've learned from years of writing on education policy: the more convoluted the talking point, the more likely it's twisting the facts.For example [all emphases below are mine]:Today, African-American students in Newark are four times more likely to go to a quality school than they were in 2006. That's from a piece by Kyle Rosenkrans, […]
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