tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post5161655719816323427..comments2024-03-29T09:31:19.088-04:00Comments on the daily howler: L. A. (PUBLIC SCHOOL) CONFIDENTIAL: Are L.A.'s schools really "schools that work?"<b>bob somerby</b>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02963464534685954436noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-54062369206784176672022-04-07T06:45:51.195-04:002022-04-07T06:45:51.195-04:00I don't care if Donald J Chickenshit caused it...I don't care if Donald J Chickenshit caused it to rain American Eagle gold coins every 2nd Tuesday, it would not be worth allowing that foul corrupt abomination anywhere near political office. <br /><br />Go fuck yourself, David.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-1483682231480758472022-04-06T19:05:35.130-04:002022-04-06T19:05:35.130-04:00NAEP 2019 8th Grade Math (increase over 2003)
Nat...NAEP 2019 8th Grade Math (increase over 2003)<br /><br />National <br />White 292 (+5)<br />Black 260 (+8)<br />Hispanic 268 (+10)<br /><br />CA<br />White 294 (+14)<br />Black 252 (+18)<br />Hispanic 262 (+22)<br /><br />CA has increased the scores at a better rate than the national averages.<br /><br />Somerby does not post the reading scores because the gaps are much smaller.<br /><br />Black/White gaps will persist due to systemic and institutional racism that supersede state borders.<br /><br />A more significant gap is the national wealth gap where Black people only have 15% of the wealth of White people.<br /><br />Widening out, the 60 wealthiest people hold as much wealth as half the population of the entire world, about 4 billion people. Now that's a gap!<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-65815233100588486952022-04-06T18:19:31.575-04:002022-04-06T18:19:31.575-04:00Lincoln eventually opposed slavery, but he still t...Lincoln eventually opposed slavery, but he still thought that Black people were inferior to Whites. As slavery ended, Lincoln (along with others such as Frederick Douglas) expressed concern about wage slavery, which is what right wingers turned to as a replacement for chattel slavery. Right wing values and policies have been a disaster for society.<br /><br />Trump did not have any policy that helped people of color, the circumstances of the slight upward trend in limited economic metrics started years before Trump was president. (Similarly, Trump claimed "Operation Warp Speed" his own, but this came from the FDA and Congress, Trump had nothing to do with it.) Trump did very little other than allow more toxic pollutants in our environment, and caused havoc in the milk and soy industries. Also civilian deaths increased in places like Syria, where Trump let Putin have his way.<br /><br />Trumpists make vague claims because their claims are without merit or evidence. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-84653421930875810532022-04-06T18:03:17.783-04:002022-04-06T18:03:17.783-04:00Josh Hawley was forced to accuse Judge Jackson of ...Josh Hawley was forced to accuse Judge Jackson of being pro pedo, based on the dictum that every Right-wing accusation is really a confession.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-58955282928267451972022-04-06T18:00:16.572-04:002022-04-06T18:00:16.572-04:00Let's not forget, Trump tried to gaslight a vi...Let's not forget, Trump tried to gaslight a viral pandemic, like it was some common NY Times political reporter, who is paid to be a stenographer for Republicans.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-25685588786682598452022-04-06T16:37:29.082-04:002022-04-06T16:37:29.082-04:00"Trump's policies brought about substanti..."Trump's policies brought about substantially improved economic conditions for blacks and Hispanics. This was caused by eliminating many regulations. That is, less government produced better results."<br /><br />Whatever small impact this may have had was wiped out by Trump's covid polcies which placed Hispanics and blacks at the forefront of vulnerability because they held jobs where they could not work at home, were less likely to have sick pay and thus couldn't stay home from jobs to care for themselves or sick family members, and were more likely to be in factory or service occupations, such as the hard-hit poultry industry and restaurants. Trump did not provide relief for such workers -- Biden did that. Instead, Trump implemented PPP and other policies so incompetently that they resulted in the most expensive grifting and theft of public $ in American history. How did that benefit minorities?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-23933147764508767762022-04-06T16:32:28.412-04:002022-04-06T16:32:28.412-04:00It has been pointed out that the black students in...It has been pointed out that the black students in Los Angeles have moved to suburbs so that the population of black students is lower now than in 2003. Black students also fled to charter schools. While those schools did not cherry-pick applicants, there was a built-in selection bias because the black students with more savvy, motivated parents who were involved in their kids' education, were more likely to apply to such schools. That left the black kids with less involved and savvy parents in the public schools over time. That seems like a reasonable explanation for the persistence of black/white gaps over time, during a period where charter schools were being actively promoted by the Federal government and conservatives and black activists. I doubt that Somerby will address this either. He has no interest in the explanations for gaps -- only in telling liberals that we don't care about black kids. Even though liberals are the ones actively working to help black kids -- not conservatives, who seem to prefer policies that have a negative impact on minorities over ones that would help them, along with white constituents. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-12064420896692383272022-04-06T16:24:50.717-04:002022-04-06T16:24:50.717-04:00But here is another problem. In 2010, the LAUSD im...But here is another problem. In 2010, the LAUSD implemented value-added teacher evaluation. Teacher ratings included a measure of how much their students had improved during the past year. Teachers with high achieving students because highly evaluated teachers, if they switched schools and worked with less high achieving students, they magically became lower-rated themselves. Evaluation scores were published for individual teachers in the L.A. Times. As a result, one award-winning teacher committed suicide when he received low ratings that appeared in print. It took a while to roll that back. Subsequent studies showed that the ratings did not achieve the intended results:<br /><br />https://www.chalkbeat.org/2018/8/5/21105518/eight-years-ago-the-l-a-times-published-teachers-ratings-new-research-tells-us-what-happened-next<br /><br />The ratings did achieve a redistribution of high-rated teachers to the high achieving students and schools. Might it be that the schools increased their NAEP score means by simplying focusing resources on the highest scoring kids? I doubt Somerby will examine that possibility.<br /><br />And how exactly does Somerby think that NAEP score improvements can be meaningless, or the result of cheating, when the graduation rates have improved? As mh points out, there are other measures of school success that Somerby never talks about -- perhaps he avoids them because they don't support his picture of doom and gloom but correlate with the NAEP increases, suggesting that kids are in fact doing better? <br /><br />And who roots against schools and kids to do better? Somerby appears to and that makes him seem like a super Grinch, education-wise. Why is he practically hoping that nothing will work to help minority kids do better? His tone is a cross between I-told-you-so and those-ratty-black-kids-are-hopeless. He says it is because everyone ignores the black kids, but it hardly seems to be the case in Los Angeles, which is not only a highly diverse city with black people involved at every stage of school administration and reform, but a liberal city that actively cares about civil rights and doing better for black residents. Somerby's pro forma explanation makes no sense for Los Angeles. He is going through the motions when he criticizes Fuller's work and he is clearly not thinking about Los Angeles when he makes these pronouncements about what is wrong there. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-78706946848598030252022-04-06T16:24:31.786-04:002022-04-06T16:24:31.786-04:00Tomorrow, I expect that Somerby may trot out the 2...Tomorrow, I expect that Somerby may trot out the 2019 NAEP scores in order to show that there has been lackluster progress. I do not expect him to remember to tell us that these 2019 scores include testing of students with disabilities and English language learners, for the first time. NAEP provides a way of "estimating" the impact of such students, but I doubt that will do justice to the Los Angeles test scores, given that Los Angeles has more immigrants than any other district in the nation, 35% from Latin America and 18% from China. <br /><br />This was not as true in 2003 because immigration has increased since then and is at its peak since the 1850s in those 2019 scores. I expect that Somerby will point out that the gaps have not decreased for Hispanic children, but how can they be expected to with an influx of English language learners to the latest testing cohort? Black students are now 6%, a decrease that has occurred as blacks have moved to suburbs and Hispanic immigrants have moved into South Central Los Angeles, Compton, and other previously black low-income neighborhoods. I wonder if Somerby has any idea how demographic shifts affect NAEP comparisons? Since he rarely mentions them, I doubt they are on his radar.<br /><br />Somerby also has not explained why there would be cheating on the NAEP specifically, when it is not used for student or teacher assessment (individual scores are not reported) and not for district funding either. It's "gold standard" status rests on the fact that there is no reason to cheat on it because there is no benefit to doing so. That also weakens the motivation to perform well on it, but that problem stays constant over time. So, Somerby suggestion that administrators may have cheated on NAEP in Los Angeles makes no sense at all.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-64612583963780003262022-04-06T15:55:43.048-04:002022-04-06T15:55:43.048-04:00Abraham Lincoln did not pass the 13th Amendment, w...Abraham Lincoln did not pass the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery. Congress did that. Lincoln issued a wartime Emancipation Proclamation that declared the slaves belonging to secessionist Southerners, confiscated in the war, to be free. He did this in order to further the Union war effort.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-60898501401347970602022-04-06T15:33:21.211-04:002022-04-06T15:33:21.211-04:00Berto,
Surely, all none of the Republican voters w...Berto,<br />Surely, all none of the Republican voters who care about something other than bigotry and white supremacy, would have voted for Trump even if he touted how blacks and hispanics benefited from his policies. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-64603089676516028902022-04-06T15:28:57.572-04:002022-04-06T15:28:57.572-04:00The only reason Trump didn’t tout his policies, an...The only reason Trump didn’t tout his policies, and how they improved the lives of blacks and Hispanics, is he felt he needed at least one Republican voter to vote for him in his re-election bid.Bertohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00467132691948621846noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-84906943194790958322022-04-06T15:14:24.580-04:002022-04-06T15:14:24.580-04:00Republicans have brought about tremendous wealth f...Republicans have brought about tremendous wealth for the 1%, wealth rarely, if ever, seen before in history. Republicans have brought about tremendous oppression and poverty, unheard of inequalities, they have brought about our polluted and toxic environment, and they shall soon bring about devastation to our planet to the extent that it will be largely uninhabitable by humans.<br /><br />Republicans have made the effort, and they have wildly succeeded. Well done, Republicans!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-18039399170101357532022-04-06T15:07:27.057-04:002022-04-06T15:07:27.057-04:00Trump's policies brought about substantially i...Trump's policies brought about substantially improved economic conditions for blacks and Hispanics. This was caused by eliminating many regulations. That is, less government produced better results.<br /><br />Reagan's reforms brought about 20 years of economic expansion. (This was also from the government doing less.)<br /><br />Reagan's foreign and military policy brought about the defeat and dissolution of the Soviet Union -- without a ruinous war between the US and USSR.<br /><br />Eisenhower's prudent government policies ended the Korean War and brought about 8 years of prosperity.<br /><br />Going way back in history, Abraham Lincoln ended slavery.David in Calhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10222355423128534221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-13982639344051779892022-04-06T14:52:58.827-04:002022-04-06T14:52:58.827-04:00Somerby does not provide a "clear historical ...Somerby does not provide a "clear historical context of why the phrase is misleading", he provides a couple of examples of cheating and a rival company with different "national norms", hardly a case for dismissing the phrase.<br /><br />Furthermore, Somerby provides no context for understanding the phrase. It is obscenely reductionist to apply the phrase "schools that work" to just test scores, the article explains this. Schools prepare kids for functioning in our society; undeniably one significant way to measure if schools are working is the health of the local society it serves. Yes, Baltimore is not optimal - high crime, high poverty, but CA, pretty optimal relative to the country, it appears that regardless of test scores the CA schools are working better than most.<br /><br />1:37 you claim everyone else is dumb but you do not bother to make coherent or meaningful arguments, which, in the end, does not serve you well.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-87724800557294111182022-04-06T14:42:52.919-04:002022-04-06T14:42:52.919-04:001:17: What an author means by schools “working” de...1:17: What an author means by schools “working” depends upon how that writer defines the term. It isn’t universally misleading. Because it was misleading presumably in certain circumstances according to Bob Somerby doesn’t mean it is always misleading or that it is misleading in this particular instance. mhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08937133532381705347noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-72729863108973587792022-04-06T14:33:02.388-04:002022-04-06T14:33:02.388-04:00Long ago and far away Bob probably had something u...Long ago and far away Bob probably had something useful to say on these issues. Or, at the very least, he could be taken in good faith. Now it's just more pious ranting, not even only to advance his weird ego, his image of himself as the only person who could possibly care about black kids in he inner city. It's just his bland hatred of liberals taking over, his fantasies about northern condescension coming for mommy and daddy. coming to burn down the plantation. <br /> I'm sure the black kids he supposedly loves and their families feel well serve by Bob's attempt's to help Republicans get Judge Jackson written off as a pro pedo. He just cares so much. Greghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09288008924419574934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-80873636737581533622022-04-06T14:29:13.490-04:002022-04-06T14:29:13.490-04:00I’d like to know what “results” David thinks the R...I’d like to know what “results” David thinks the Republicans have ever brought about, assuming that they have ever made the effort. mhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08937133532381705347noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-90988191789960101642022-04-06T14:22:16.055-04:002022-04-06T14:22:16.055-04:00“We even presented a raft of test scores to show h...“We even presented a raft of test scores to show how bad things seemed to be. Based upon appearances, the Los Angeles schools were doing about as poorly, at that point in time, as any school district a person could name.”<br /><br />In other words, LA schools weren’t “working.” Somerby uses the test scores to “show” this, despite hating to talk about schools “working.”<br /><br />Perhaps this is a problem with using test scores to characterize schools. <br /><br />Emphasizing test scores, to the point where they become existential statistics, has clearly created problematical issues, such as teaching to the test and cheating. <br /><br />And I don’t get the sense that any “tribe”, Republican, Democrat, or what have you, are engaged in “unending sleep about the performance of the public schools which Those Children attend.” If anything, the constant focus on test scores (by both “tribes”) and segregation (by liberals, mostly) would seem to indicate the opposite - a dissatisfaction with the state of public schools, reports like Mathews’ notwithstanding. mhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08937133532381705347noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-12864762716450049452022-04-06T14:17:57.682-04:002022-04-06T14:17:57.682-04:00Say Mao, the degenerate clown. Say Mao, the degenerate clown. Greghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09288008924419574934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-982350393142175392022-04-06T14:00:29.025-04:002022-04-06T14:00:29.025-04:00Unlike David, I won’t vote for Trump just because ...Unlike David, I won’t vote for Trump just because he’s a bigot.<br />If Trump wants my vote, he’ll give me the right to over rule corporate boardrooms.Bertohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00467132691948621846noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-50309149576783993272022-04-06T13:17:17.514-04:002022-04-06T13:17:17.514-04:00And the two dumbest comments find each other like ...And the two dumbest comments find each other like a marriage made in hell.<br /><br />He doesn't like the phrase, so the impetus is not on him to define what it means for a school to "work." He provides a clear historical context of why the phrase is misleading.<br /><br />But don't let that stop the dumbassery or ridiculous projections of spiteful behavior onto Somerby, everyone knows where the spite really lies here.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-72930360982258780892022-04-06T13:03:58.859-04:002022-04-06T13:03:58.859-04:00Guess what, David, you stupid fuck. The oil extra...Guess what, David, you stupid fuck. The oil extraction industry has not been nationalized in this country yet. President Biden cannot force the oil companies who are taking advantage and raping the country by price gouging to drill more. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-8033476660801136292022-04-06T11:18:23.980-04:002022-04-06T11:18:23.980-04:00What Bob observes about LA schools is true of most...What Bob observes about LA schools is true of most issues: Democrats care less about results than about making an effort. Why? I suppose it's because they can celebrate <i>doing</i> something. Also, the particular actions generally benefit some special interest, who will reward the Democrats for helping them.<br /><br />E.g., consider the price of gasoline. Biden and other Dems are boasting about tapping the Emergency Oil Reserve -- a step that has NOT reduced the price of a barrel of oil. Tapping the emergency reserve instead of increased drilling is like spending your retirement account instead of getting a job.David in Calhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10222355423128534221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-77004371842633417522022-04-06T10:39:55.386-04:002022-04-06T10:39:55.386-04:00"We're asked to believe that wonderful th..."We're asked to believe that wonderful things have happened in the Los Angeles schools. The data make that claim hard to support, but Fuller blows past those data."<br /><br />Somerby blows past those data too. He still hasn't presented the current NAEP scores for Los Angeles. He only presented the 2003 scores yesterday and today he tells us to trust him when he says not much has changed. But why doesn't he present those scores and let us decide for ourselves?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com