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- How to Research Private Schools Like an Investigative Reporter 16/07/2026
- The Sage from the East: Michael Xu’s Story as a Mirror to America’s Math Education Crisis 11/07/2026
- Visual Models, Procedural Fluency, and Multiple Strategies:A Cognitive Critique of Common Core Elementary Mathematics 28/06/2026
- He Was Fired for Sexually Harassing Students. California Allowed Him to Keep Teaching Anyway 12/05/2026
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The elitist strain in US education journalism
Some years ago, during the heat of a presidential campaign I assembled some policy-relevant and time-sensitive research on the top education policy topic of the day. I could have published the work myself as, it so happens, I ended up doing anyway. But, I thought the work would get more traction from a sympathetic organization with a higher profile.
I sent the research to a nationally known advocacy organization to use as it saw fit, but then heard nothing from them for weeks. Meanwhile, they published other research on the same topic. I wrote to inquire what had happened to what I sent, and why they hadn’t used it. It was an innocent question; I wanted to know if I should bother communicating with them in the future.
I received a reply from one of their research analysts. His answer had nothing to do with the research material I sent. Rather, he wrote that he had been a senior editor at a national education news publication and had inquired about me at both his current organization and among his colleagues at his former news publication. No one at either place had heard of me. Ergo, anything I sent them was not worth wasting any of their time on. It wasn’t that what I had sent them that didn’t matter. What didn’t matter was me. I was simply not important enough to merit a moment of their attention.
A couple of months ago I sent Politico Morning Education a batch of five reports collectively entitled, Common Core Collaborators: Six Organizational Portraits Common Core Collaborators: Six Organizational Portraits. I had written the reports, and they were published after editorial review in the Nonpartisan Education Review.
Four times I requested that Politico add a notice of the reports in the “Report Roll Call” section of its daily Morning Education. Thrice, I requested that they inform me of their rationale if they chose not to publish the notice.
Other curated “overview[s] of education policy news” published a notice and links to Common Core Collaborators, including: Truth in American Education’s blog, Education Views, Donna Garner, Jim Zellmer’s Schoolinfosystem.org, the National Association of Scholars monthly newsletter, and Fritzwire’s daily Public Private Action.
Over the span of time I was communicating with them, Politico Morning Education’s Report Roll Call directed the public’s attention to reports from the following individuals and groups:
- American Federation of Teachers
- American Institutes for Research
- Bush Institute
- Century Foundation
- CCSSO
- Center for American Progress
- Chiefs for Change (2)
- The Conference Board
- Education Next
- Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education
- FutureEd
- Rick Hess
- OECD
- Rand Corporation (3)
- Southern Regional Education Board
- Third Way
- Urban Institute
Notice a pattern? The individuals and groups Politico’s Morning Edition deems worthy of mention are well-funded and politically well-connected—those who can “pay to play.” They tend to be individuals and organizations that donate funds to support education news outlets. They tend also to be organizations with their own public relations personnel. Finally, overwhelmingly they are individuals and organizations that have accepted money from the Gates’ and other foundations to promote Common Core.
Were any Common Core opponent individuals or groups represented over these two months in Report Roll Call? None that I could see.
Despite repeated requests, Politico’s Morning Education never mentioned Common Core Collaborators, and never explained why. Despite their complaints about others, it would seem that some journalists are perfectly capable of censorship and information suppression themselves. Perhaps, if I were more important ;-)
P.S. Later, I would receive the same cold shoulder from Education Dive.
There’s A Deeper Systemic Problem in the College Admissions Scandal No One Is Talking About
Posted in College prep, Education Fraud, Ethics, Testing/Assessment
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Indoctrinating our youth: How a U.S. Public School Curriculum Skews the Arab-Israeli Conflict
https://www.camera.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Monograph-Spring-2017.pdf
Anti-Israel Indoctrination Continues In Newton Public High School
Posted in Censorship, Education policy, K-12, Sandra Stotsky, Social Studies
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News Flash! AL’s Senate Pro Tem, who has previously stopped all anti-CC bills, filed an anti-CC bill today
The AL Senate has 35 members; 27 sponsored it.
Links to articles on standards-based grading
Competency based ed which is the method that will come as an outgrowth of SBG. What is measured will improve. So this from Peter Greene applies.
https://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/11/can-competency-based-education-be.html?m=1
Interesting review of Arne Duncan’s book, by fellow Chicagoan Bill Ayers
Arne Doesn’t Learn
customer review, by Dr. William C. Ayers
If you pick up Arne Duncan’s How Schools Work hoping to learn something about, well, unsurprisingly I suppose, about “how schools work,” you’ll be sorely disappointed. There’s no policy prescription here, no substantive analysis whatsoever, and no actual accounts or examples of how schools work. Instead we’re treated to random stories that circulate around several stuttering themes: Duncan’s dismay and then anger when poor kids are told they’re doing OK by school people when in reality they don’t have the skills to go to college; his encounters with enraged parents that happily end when they chill out after he shows them that his heart is true and his intentions pure; and his insistent defense of “big data” and high stakes standardized tests when promoting his preferred school “reform” goals.
The subtitle isn’t especially helpful either: “An Inside Account of Failure and Success from One of the Nation’s Longest-Serving Secretaries of Education.” That might have proved useful, but the reader searches in vain for fresh perspectives or insights, for some discovery or surprise, contradiction or conflict, for an inquiring mind thinking out loud as it engages a conversation with itself—anything at all that might be generative. What’s on offer instead is untroubled categories and settled conclusions. Arne Duncan learns nothing at all—neither in his many years at the helm of Chicago’s and then the nation’s schools, nor in the process of writing this personal account.
Failure and success? An inside account? A good memoir might fruitfully explore all of that, but it would have to be free from the brutality of dogma and self-righteousness, which Duncan can’t quite manage. He’s a dedicated corporate reformer, avidly endorsing the underlying thesis that education is a product to be sold at the market place rather than a fundamental human right and community responsibility, and embracing the entire triple threat: reducing the definition of school success (for other people’s children) to a single metric on a standardized test; marginalizing or crushing the collective voice of teachers; and auctioning off the public space to private managers and entrepreneurs. None of this is up for discussion or review, and that makes the entire account tedious and entirely predictable.
Duncan’s opening sentence is a calculated attention-getter: “Education runs on lies.” Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post points out that that sentence begs for the services of a good editor—education doesn’t run on lies, she says, so perhaps he means that the school system runs on lies; but since there’s no single school system in this country, perhaps he means specific schools run on lies. Whatever. It turns out “lies” is deployed as an all-purpose metaphor: the big lie (which he returns to again and again) is “social promotion,” moving kids along when they aren’t up to par or college-ready; other lies include the lie that poor kids can’t learn, manifest through low expectations by school people and politicians for children of the poor; the lie that self-serving teachers unions tell when they pretend to care more than a fig for the success of public school students; the lie spread by teacher educators that colleges of education effectively prepare teachers for classroom life. All lies according to Duncan. In support of the larger corporate reform agenda, Duncan dutifully side-steps any link (although well-established by authentic research and loads of data) between poverty or racial segregation and school success. Again and again he makes the dubious claim that test scores “don’t lie” and that the solutions to our various problems can be found in “big data”—selectively harvested to be sure.
The only “failure” Duncan will admit to is the classic “failure to communicate:” “Race to the Top” was “misunderstood,” parents and teachers didn’t understand the incredible value for their kids of regular standardized testing, and sometimes he “jammed my foot in my mouth.” He repeats this disingenuous self-criticism so often that it brings to mind the stuttering exchange between the Captain and the prisoner in the classic film “Cool Hand Luke”—every substantive conflict is dismissed with the Captain’s signature line uttered with utter contempt: “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” The phrase is consistently issued by power to dodge the import of any conflict, and as prelude to doubling down on harsher sanctions and brutal punishments.
Arne Duncan’s children have always attended schools that work—public schools in the suburbs of Washington, elite private schools in Chicago— and these are schools with small class sizes, full arts programs, excellent facilities, and unionized teachers. Each of his kids is, of course, more than a score. Nothing wrong with any of that. The hypocrisy comes when he sets policy for other people’s children that never mentions class size or the value of the arts or the importance of teachers’ voices when it comes to school policy and practice. Duncan’s prescription for the rest of us is an anemic curriculum and a single-minded obsession with standardized tests.
We need to resist as we insist that in a democracy equality in education is a first principle, and that means that whatever the privileged and the powerful have for their children must become the baseline for what we as a community demand for all of our children. Nothing less.
Missouri’s Show-Me Institute: Where Liberty (and Censorship?) Come First
Last year, in response to one of their blog posts, I submitted a comment to the think tank/advocacy group, the Show-Me Institute, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. I describe what I did, why, and what happened in a Nonpartisan Education Review essay ( https://nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Essays/v14n3.htm ). Briefly, I warned the Institute that their blog post recommended a policy that would likely be found illegal in the courts. While a couple of other, purely supportive comments were published, my comment was shelved into “pending” status.
For several months. Finally, the Show-Me Institute simply deleted my submitted comment. Here it is:
“Before returning to the “good old days” of un-aligned, internally-administered, no-stakes (for students), national norm-referenced tests for systemwide evaluation, perhaps we should remind ourselves of what those days were really like. One can start by reading J.J. Cannell’s “Lake Wobegon Effect” reports here:
https://nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Books/CannellBook1.htm . I’d also suggest my report on the same topic here: https://nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Articles/v6n3.htm . The most important issue to keep in mind, however, is this: if any consequences apply to students, the tests must be aligned to state standards, otherwise the tests will probably be found illegal in the courts, as well they should be. It is simply not fair to evaluate students in any consequential way on material to which they have not been exposed. I do not mean to defend the current testing regime, which I also find unappealing. But, remember, it is this way because the majority party in Congress wanted it this way: https://time.com/3681776/lam/ .”
No nasty words. No personal attacks. Yet, somehow, someone at the ironically-named Show-Me Institute rationalized censoring this comment.
Richard P. Phelps
Letter to NPR’s Ari Shapiro and producers of their “individualized learning” podcast
From: Erich Martel
Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2018
To: ‘mediarelations@npr.org’
Dear Ari Shapiro and Individualized Learning (and Project Based Learning) Podcast Producers,
I want to make three points re “Individualized Learning” and all claims pertaining to education:
1) Always look for independent research.
Putting Students on the Path to Learning: The Case for Fully Guided Instruction: http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/spring2012/Clark.pdf
Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching
https://www.cogtech.usc.edu/publications/kirschner_Sweller_Clark.pdf
http://www.bie.org/object/document/a_review_of_research_on_project_based_lea
rning
Google neuroscientist Dan Willingham (UVA) and look at his series of articles, “Ask the cognitive scientist” in the quarterly American Educator: https://www.aft.org/ae/author-index#quicktabs-authors=4 (scroll down to Willingham)
2) Beware of educational programs described in euphemistic, feel-good language
A good example is “individualized learning”; it’s isolated computer driven learning. You should never employ a euphemism without explaining what it means in unvarnished, objective terms. Look up E.D. Hirsch’s jargon generator.
3) I was shocked to hear Chan and Zuckerberg quoted as education experts.
You have no reason to trust what they say about their facebook empire. There is even less reason to trust them on the subject of education:
See: Dale Russakoff, “The Prize: Who’s In Charge of America’s Schools?” which describes Zuckerberg’s $100M failed initiative in the Newark NJ public schools.
You already know a great deal about facebook’s role in the 2016 elections. The UK Parliament has just discovered even more evidence of Z’s irresponsibility:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/24/mps-seize-cache-facebook-
internal-papers
I like NPR and many of its programs. I am, however, sick of hearing foundation ads on NPR that make claims (Walton, Edutopia, etc., etc.) that are not supported by independent research.
Erich Martel, Retired Washington, DC high school history teacher (1969-2011)
Common Core Collaborators: Six Organizational Portraits
New in the Nonpartisan Education Review:
https://nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Articles/CommonCoreCollaborators.htm
Phelps, R. P. (2018). Common Core Collaborators: Six Organizational Portraits. Nonpartisan Education Review/Articles, 14(3–7).
– The Organization Named Achieve: Cradle of Common Core Cronyism
– The Council of Chief State School Officers and National Governors Association: Whom do they serve?
– Real Clear Propaganda: Bellwether’s Education News Bias
– The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and Institute: Influence for Hire
– Does College Board Deserve Public Subsidies?
Posted in Censorship, College prep, Common Core, Curriculum & Instruction, Education journalism, Education policy, Education Reform, Higher Education, information suppression, K-12, partisanship, research ethics, Richard P. Phelps, Testing/Assessment
Tagged Achieve, Bellwether, CCSSO, College Board, Collegeboard, Fordham, NGA
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State of ELA under Common Core
The Fordham Institute just came out with its “research” on reading and writing under Common Core.
No mention of three baseline studies that preceded Common Core.
Stotsky, Goering, Jolliffe study of Arkansas high school English teachers’ assignments
Stotsky, Traffas, Woodworth study of national sample of high school English teachers’ assignments
National Endowment for the Arts, Reading At Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America
Pre-Common Core English teachers taught complete literary works—mostly appropriate for high school. Today they don’t teach complete works and we don’t know what they do teach since Fordham didn’t find out.
See also Peter Greene’s insights in Forbes, How Common Core Testing Damaged High School English Classes
My letter to Bill Gates on how to prepare students for algebra
May 17, 2018
Dear Mr. Gates,
You recently wrote, “Math is one area where we want to generate stronger evidence about what works. What would it take, for example, to get all kids to mastery of Algebra I?”
I believe I can answer your question. There have been two significant math studies done in the last decade, reaching very similar conclusions. The first was the National Mathematics Advisory Panel Report of 2008 commissioned by President George W. Bush. Here are some of their conclusions: students’ difficulty with fractions (including decimals and percents) is pervasive and a major obstacle to further progress in mathematics including algebra. The panel suggested curriculum should allow sufficient time to learn fractions, and teachers must know effective interventions for teaching fractions. Preparation of elementary and middle school teachers in mathematics needs to be strengthened; using elementary teachers who have specialized in elementary mathematics could be an alternative to increasing all elementary teachers’ math content knowledge by focusing the need for expertise on fewer teachers.
Another problem is that many textbooks are too long (700 to 1000 pages) and include non-mathematical content like photographs and motivational stories. Key topics should be built on a focused, coherent progression, and continual revisiting of topics year after year without closure should be avoided.
Lack of automatic recall in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division is a serious deficiency as is a lack of proficiency with whole numbers, fractions and certain aspects of geometry and measurement, which are the foundations for algebra. Of these, knowledge of fractions is the most important foundational skill not developed among American students.
The panel advised that algebra problems involving patterns be greatly reduced in state tests and on the NAEP assessment. Also districts should ensure that all prepared students have access to an authentic algebra course by 8th grade, and more students should be prepared to enroll in such a course by 8th grade.
The second important study, “Early Predictors of High School Mathematics Achievement” was published in June 14, 2012, and an article about it, entitled “Fractions are the key to math success, new study shows,” was posted at the Univ. of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research on June 18, 2012. Robert Siegler, a cognitive psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University, was the lead author of this study which analyzed long-term data on more than 4,000 children from both the United States and the United Kingdom. It found students’ understanding of fractions and division at age 10 predicted algebra and overall math achievement in high school, even after statistically controlling for a wide range of factors including parents’ education and income and children’s age and I.Q.
Univ. of Michigan researcher Pamela Davis-Kean, the co-author of the study, said, “These findings demonstrate an immediate need to improve the teaching and learning of fractions and division.”
Dr. Siegler stated, “We suspected that early knowledge in these areas was absolutely crucial to later learning of more advanced mathematics, but did not have any evidence until now.”
I know how interested you and your wife are in improving education, especially in math, for our students. As a state school board representative, I understand the importance of getting our teachers and students on track immediately. I believe we can succeed, though, if we will follow the advice given in these two studies. I would certainly be glad to discuss this subject with you or your staff.
Sincerely,
Betty Peters
107 Riveredge Parkway
Dothan AL 36303
PS. The two reports can be found online:
https://home.isr.umich.edu/releases/fractions-are-the-key-to-math-success-new-study-shows/
Nation’s Report Card: Common Core delivering education stagnation
https://ivn.us/2018/04/11/nations-report-card-common-core-delivering-education-stagnation/
…at the Independent Voter Network website, https://IVN.us
Posted in Common Core, Education Fraud, Education policy, Education Reform, Richard P. Phelps, Testing/Assessment
Tagged NAEP
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There are Only Two Sides to US Education Policy (Thanks to the Parties)
https://ivn.us/2018/04/03/two-sides-us-education-policy-thanks-parties/
…at the Independent Voter Network website, https://IVN.us
Posted in Censorship, Education policy, information suppression, K-12, partisanship, research ethics, Richard P. Phelps
Tagged Democrats, Republicans
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New in the Nonpartisan Education Review: Who watches the watchmen? Transparency might guard the integrity of the tests given by the National Assessment of Educational Progress
Who watches the watchmen? Transparency might guard the integrity of the tests given by the National Assessment of Educational Progress
by Sandra Stotsky
https://nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Essays/v14n2.htm
What I learned at the ResearchED (US) Media Panel
For those still unfamiliar with it, ResearchED is “a grass-roots, teacher led organisation” founded in the UK whose mission is to “raise research literacy, bring people together, promote collaboration, increase awareness, promote research, and explore what works.” It has also been stereotyped as criticizing progressive education pedagogies in favor of traditional pedagogies. To my observation, it accepts the best ideas from both camps that are based on solid evidence.
ResearchED is popular and well established in the UK. Groups have also organized in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and the US. US ResearchED held its second annual conference in New York City in October 2017. I was invited to lead one session and to participate in a panel on media coverage of education research.
In addition to myself—a frequent critic of US education journalism—the panel comprised a journalist, the head of an organization of journalists, and a moderator.
The main points I expressed:
There are two education establishments: the traditional public school coalition of education schools, unions, and administrator associations, and an education reform establishment, which relies on an extraordinarily small group of researchers, mostly academic economists and political scientists, to provide and interpret education research for them.
Both establishments aggressively suppress other education research, information, and points of view through selective referencing, dismissive reviews, citation cartels, tone policing, condescension, and character assassination.
Unfortunately, most nationally focused education journalists source their research stories from these two censorial groups and ignore the vast majority of available research and information. Moreover, journalists aid the information suppression whenever they print claims that a study they are covering is the first ever done on a topic (i.e., a firstness claim) or there exists no other research on the topic (i.e., a dismissive review). During the panel session, I accused education journalists of covering only those sources with money (and PR staff) behind them.
In their defense, the journalists’ association head asserted that they:
take money from a wide variety of sources, and
are open to receiving story tips from anyone.
The sourcing behavior she described seems to me remarkably passive. Note their donors all have money to give. What about those who cannot afford to “pay to play?”
As for their openness to story suggestions, of course some people and organizations know about pitching stories and many more do not. Some organizations with public relations staff are expert at this activity and make suggestions effectively and often. Moreover, aggressive career-focused researchers are more likely to feel such behavior—promoting their research with the media—is appropriate. By contrast, many, perhaps most, scholars feel that research discussions belong more properly in scholarly journals, and journalists should not be arbitrarily picking single studies from the research literature and suggesting policy conclusions based on them.
It worries me most that journalists might seem content to let story tipsters and large donors set their agenda. I would think that a truly independent press would set its own agenda.
My most memorable panel interactions, though, were with the moderator. He interjected a judgmental comment while I was speaking; cut me off twice; and planted a colleague in the audience who was certain to disagree with me (and subsequently did so).
The plant’s career has been made with money from the Gates Foundation and other Common Core funders. I have openly and thoroughly criticized the quality of his research work here and here.
As for the moderator, he heads an organization that, you guessed it, also takes money from prominent Common Core funders, including the Gates Foundation.
The moderator posed one question uniquely to me. He said some researchers he knows feel no need to read most education research because it is “crap.” I countered that much of their research is “crap,” too. But, I could have added a few more pertinent points:
- The “citation cartel” researchers I generally criticize for selective referencing and dismissive reviewing read very little past research, if one can judge by their citations. Generally, they read that done by others in their mutual back-scratching group and only a small amount done outside their group (typically that which rises above what I call the “celebrity research threshold,” that which is so well-known that it cannot be ignored). Moreover, they read little research conducted prior to the mid-1990s, when the World Wide Web was introduced.
- The researchers I criticize dismiss any research using qualitative methods (except on those occasions when they themselves employ such methods), such as: surveys, interviews, case studies, observations, and ethnographies. Those methods are not “rigorous,” they claim. By this logic, researchers using “not rigorous” methods include Charles Darwin, Jane Goodall, Albert Einstein, Dian Fossey, Franz Boas, Alexander von Humboldt, Edward Jenner, and Thomas Kuhn (and any other historian).
- Those I most criticize for selective referencing and dismissive reviewing ignore almost completely a century’s worth of research conducted by psychologists, in favor of that published in economics, political science, and education. So, to say that all the research they ignore is “crap,” is to identify a hundred years of psychologists’ research as crap. (Note that much of the motivation for ResearchED is to showcase the best education-related research conducted in psychology that has been routinely ignored by education school professors.)
- Judgments of what is or not “crap” seem to be made based entirely on methodology. In the education reform establishment, we have a set of researchers trained in data analysis, but with very little exposure to actual education activity. Some of them may have taught school for a year or two when they were young, but that’s it—no experience in education administration at any level. Lacking experience in the field, it would seem even more important that they read widely in the research literature. But, they don’t.
The hearty thanks I received from several separate, individual audience members afterwards suggested to me that I was not alone in feeling that press coverage of education research is rigged in favor of those with money and power.
New in the Nonpartisan Education Review: Dan Koretz’s Big Con
The Testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better, by Daniel Koretz [book review]
Reviewed by Richard P. Phelps
Fewer Students Learning Arithmetic and Algebra
by Jerome Dancis
This summer, I obtained the college remediation data for my state of Maryland. Well just 2014, the latest available. So BCC i.e. before Common Core became the state tests in Maryland.
Does anyone know of similar data for other states?
Fewer Students Learning Arithmetic and Algebra
Analysis based on data by Maryland Higher Education Commission’s (MHEC) Student Outcome and Achievement Report (SOAR).
The data for my state of Maryland (MD) is: (This data may be typical for many of the 45 states, which adapted the NCTM Standards.)
Decline in Percent of Freshmen Entering Colleges in Maryland, Who Knew Arithmetic and Real High School Algebra I.
1998 2005 2006 2014
Whites 67% 60% 58% 64%
African-Americans 44% 33% 36% 37%
Hispanics 56% 42% 43% 44%
See my [Univ. of Maryland] Faculty Voice article,
“More Remedial Math [at MD Colleges]? [YES]”
scroll down to bottom of Page 1
Caveat. This data describes only those graduates of Maryland high schools in 1998, 2005, 2006 and 2014, who entered a college in Maryland the same year.
Related Data. From 1998 to 2005, the number of white graduates increased by 11% (from 14,473 to 16,127), but the number who knew arithmetic and high school algebra I decreased (from 9703 to 9619) (as determined by college placement tests).
Similarly, from 1998 to 2005, the number of African-American graduates who were minimally ready for college Math went down in spite of increased college enrollments of females by 21% and males by 31%.
One of the likely causes for the downturn: High school Algebra I used to be the Algebra course colleges expected. Under the specter of the MD School Assessments (MSAs) and High School Assessments (HSAs), school administrators have been bending the instructional programs out of shape in order to teach to the state tests. The MSAs on math and the MD Voluntary Math Curriculum marginalizes Arithmetic, thereby not allocating sufficient time for too many students to learn Arithmetic. Arithmetic lessons were largely Arithmetic with calculator. The MD HSA on Algebra was Algebra with graphing calculator. The MD HSA on Algebra avoided the arithmetic and arithmetic-based Algebra students would need in college, such as knowing that 3x + 2x = 5x and knowing 9×8 = 72. I nick-named it The MD HSA on “Pretend Algebra” .
Surprise! SBAC and CRESST stonewall public records request for their financial records
Say what you will about Achieve, PARCC, Fordham, CCSSO, and NGA— some of the organizations responsible for promoting the Common Core Initiative on us all. But, their financial records are publicly available.
Not so for some other organizations responsible for the same Common Core promotion. The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the Center for Research on Educational Standards and Student Testing (CRESST) have absorbed many millions of taxpayer and foundation dollars over the years. But, their financial records have been hidden inside the vast, nebulous cocoon of the University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA). UCLA’s financial records, of course, are publicly available, but amounts there are aggregated at a level that subsumes thousands of separate, individual entities.
UCLA is a tax-supported state institution, however, and California has an open records law on the books. After some digging, I located the UCLA office responsible for records requests and wrote to them. Following is a summary of our correspondence to date:
July 5, 2017
Greetings:
I hope that you can help me. I have spent a considerable amount of time clicking around in search of financial reports for the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST), both “housed” at UCLA (or, until just recently in SBAC’s case). Even after many hours of web searching, I still have no clue as to where these data might be found.
Both organizations are largely publicly funded through federal grants. I would like to obtain revenue and expenditure detail on the order of what a citizen would expect to see in a nonprofit organization’s Form 990. I would be happy to search through a larger data base that contains relevant financial details for all of UCLA, so long as the details for SBAC and CRESST are contained within and separately labeled.
I would like annual records spanning the lifetimes of each organization: SBAC only goes back several years, but CRESST goes back to the 1980s (in its early years, it was called the Center for the Study of Evaluation).
Please tell me what I need to do next.
Thank you for your time and attention.
Best Wishes, Richard Phelps
July 6, 2017
RE: Acknowledgement of Public Records Request – PRR # 17-4854
Dear Mr. Phelps:
This letter is to acknowledge your request under the California Public Records Act (CPRA) dated July 5, 2017, herein enclosed. Information Practices (IP) is notifying the appropriate UCLA offices of your request and will identify, review, and release all responsive documents in accordance with relevant law and University policy.
Under the CPRA, Cal. Gov’t Code Section 6253(b), UCLA may charge for reproduction costs and/or programming services. If the cost is anticipated to be greater than $50.00 or the amount you authorized in your original request, we will contact you to confirm your continued interest in receiving the records and your agreement to pay the charges. Payment is due prior to the release of the records.
As required under Cal. Gov’t Code Section 6253, UCLA will respond to your request no later than the close of business on July 14, 2017. Please note, though, that Section 6253 only requires a public agency to make a determination within 10 days as to whether or not a request is seeking records that are publicly disclosable and, if so, to provide the estimated date that the records will be made available. There is no requirement for a public agency to actually supply the records within 10 days of receiving a request, unless the requested records are readily available. Still, UCLA prides itself on always providing all publicly disclosable records in as timely a manner as possible.
Should you have any questions, please contact me at (310) 794-8741 or via email at pahill@finance.ucla.edu and reference the PRR number found above in the subject line.
Sincerely,
Paula Hill
Assistant Manager, Information Practices
July 14, 2017
RE: Public Records Request – PRR # 17-4854
Dear Mr. Phelps:
The purpose of this letter is to confirm that UCLA Information Practices (IP) continues to work on your public records request dated July 5, 2017. As allowed pursuant to Cal. Gov’t Code Section 6253(c), we require additional time to respond to your request, due to the following circumstance(s):
The need to search for and collect the requested records from field facilities or other establishments that are separate from the office processing the request.
IP will respond to your request no later than the close of business on July 28, 2017 with an estimated date that responsive documents will be made available.
Should you have any questions, please contact me at (310) 794-8741 or via email at pahill@finance.ucla.edu and reference the PRR number found above in the subject line.
Sincerely,
Paula Hill
Assistant Manager, Information Practices
July 28, 2017
Dear Mr. Phelps,
Please know UCLA Information Practices continues to work on your public records request, attached for your reference. I will provide a further response regarding your request no later than August 18, 2017.
Should you have any questions, please contact me at (310) 794-8741 or via email and reference the PRR number found above in the subject line.
Kind regards,
Paula Hill
Assistant Manager
UCLA Information Practices
July 29, 2017
Thank you. RP
August 18, 2017
Re: Public Records Request – PRR # 17-4854
Dear Mr. Richard Phelps:
UCLA Information Practices (IP) continues to work on your public records request dated July 5, 2017. As required under Cal. Gov’t Code Section 6253, and as noted in our email communication with you on July 28, 2017, we are now able to provide you with the estimated date that responsive documents will be made available to you, which is September 29, 2017.
As the records are still being compiled and/or reviewed, we are not able at this time to provide you with any potential costs, so that information will be furnished in a subsequent communication as soon as it is known.
Should you have any questions, please contact me at (310) 794-8741 or via email at pahill@finance.ucla.edu and reference the PRR number found above in the subject line.
Sincerely,
Paula Hill
Assistant Manager, Information Practices
September 29, 2017
Dear Mr. Richard Phelps,
Unfortunately, we must revise the estimated availability date regarding your attached request as the requisite review has not yet been completed. We expect to provide a complete response by November 30, 2017. We apologize for the delay.
Should you have any questions, please contact our office at (310) 794-8741 or via email, and reference the PRR number found above in the subject line.
Best regards,
UCLA Information Practices
September 29, 2017
I believe that if you are leaving it up to CRESST and SBAC to voluntarily provide the information, they will not be ready Nov. 30 either. RP
Posted in Censorship, Common Core, Education policy, Ethics, information suppression, K-12, research ethics, Richard P. Phelps, Testing/Assessment
Tagged CRESST, SBAC, UCLA
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The Gates Effect: Common Core Has Powerful Ally Keeping Unpopular Program Alive
https://ivn.us/2017/09/06/common-core-has-powerful-ally-keeping-unpopular-program-alive/
…at the Independent Voter Network website, https://IVN.US .
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