David Safier

Arizona BATS (Badass Teachers)

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by David Safier Wanna be a Badass Teacher (BAT)? Join the 20,396 (at this moment) BATs on Facebook. It's a closed group, so you have to request to join (in the top right hand area of the page, I believe). Wanna be an Arizona BAT? You can do that too. Go to the AZ BAT … Read more

Barbara McGuire and Mark Cardenas: AZ’s voucher-supporting Democratic legislators

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by David Safier

Mark Cardenas (LD-19) and Barbara McGuire (LD-8) support the conservative “education reform” movement. Cardenas is from a safe Democratic district with a 20 point advantage over Republicans, so there’s no reason why a candidate who’s more progressive on education issues shouldn’t primary Cardenas in 2014 and try to take that seat. McGuire is in a swing district with a 2% Democratic edge, and the House members are both Republican, so it’s a dicier situation.

Barbara McGuire’s conservative education credentials have been given the stamp of approval by the Goldwater Institute. G.I. praised her because she was the swing vote for SB1363 which expands the number of children who can take advantage of Arizona’s vouchers-on-steroids program, also known as education savings accounts. She voted No on the bill, which meant it failed, then switched her vote to Yes, which meant it passed. She also received praise for her vote from the very conservative, very pro-voucher American Federation for Children (AFC). She was one of two Democrats AFC supported in the 2012 general election. The other was Mark Cardenas. AFC endorsed them and created independent expenditure campaigns to help them win.

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Badass Teachers

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by David Safier
6a00d8341bf80c53ef01901e0e86c7970b-piThis is one of those times when bad is good and badass is even better. A loose confederation of educators around the country have formed a group, Badass Teachers (BAT), to speak out against corporate education reform. It’s been around for a week and has 19,000 members in its Facebook group. According to the Badass Teachers Association website,

This association is for every teacher who refuses to be blamed for the failure of our society to erase poverty and inequality, and refuses to accept assessments, tests and evaluations imposed by those who have contempt for real teaching and learning.

We’re watching the beginning of a movement to fight back against the conservative/corporate “education reformers.” Teachers want to be able to teach, and parents are growing tired of seeing their kids alternate between testing and being taught how to become better test takers while they watch their neighborhood schools being shut down. And both the left and the right are questioning the Common Core, for different though not entirely dissimilar reasons.

For Facebook folks who want to keep up with the progressive education movement, join the Badass Teachers and Network for Public Education. You’ll get links to articles and blog posts from around the nation, including a few from yours truly.

You can watch a short BAT video below the fold.

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But I thought our schools are failing

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by David Safier

One of the foundation myths of the conservative “education reform” movement is, our schools are failing. That’s why we need more charter schools and vouchers for private schools: to get our kids out of those failing “government schools.”

This just in: Today’s students are achieving at a higher level than students in the 1970s, and the biggest gains have been made by African American and Hispanic students. Actually, this isn’t news, it’s been clear for some time, but the “ed reformers” choose to ignore it, and the gullible media too often swallows the “failing schools” myth whole.

The Star has an AP story comparing NAEP test scores from the 1970s when the tests began to today’s scores. To the extent it makes sense to rely on any standardized tests, NAEP is the one to rely on. It hasn’t changed much in its four decade life, and you can’t teach to the test, so test prep doesn’t distort the scores.

Students aged 9, 13 and 17 take the test. From 1973 to the present, reading scores for 9 year olds went up 13 points; for 13 year olds, scores went up 8 points. In math, 9 year olds went up 25 points and 13 year olds went up 19 points. There was no significant change for 17 year olds, an interesting stat I’ll talk about later in the post.

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My thoughts on Stegeman’s game playing gets a three-peat

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by David Safier You get the sense you've hit on something when an idea gets picked up by two Tucson papers. I rewrote my post, The games Mark Stegeman plays, for the Tucson Weekly and Inside Tucson Business. Actually, it was on the Bill Buckmaster show that I first aired the idea that Dr. Stegeman, … Read more