Teachers College, Columbia University, will honor Merryl Tisch at its 2013 Convocation.
As Chancellor of the New York Board of Regents, Tisch has launched the state’s most demanding regime of high-stakes testing in history. Teachers College specifically congratulates Tisch’s leadership not only in tying test scores to teacher evaluations but in tying test scores to the school of education that prepared the teachers.
The press release notes these accomplishments:
“TC alumna Merryl Tisch, Chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents. Tisch will speak at the first master’s degree ceremony on May 21st, which starts at 9:30 a.m. As Chancellor, Tisch, a former first-grade teacher, has championed public education as “the greatest civic and civil liberties issue of our time.” She galvanized the state’s bid to receive federal Race to the Top funding, helping persuade teachers unions and other players to commit to increased charter school development and creation of a system that substantially based a teacher’s performance evaluation on students’ test scores. She has spearheaded creation of a statewide data system that ties student performance to specific teacher input – and to the school of education that prepared that teacher. On her watch, the state has provided annual $2 million grants to low-performing schools that have a demonstrated plan for turn-around. And she has expanded teacher preparation beyond the standard range of players and perspectives, leading the way in accrediting new preparation programs housed in museums and other non-traditional venues.”
The last sentence of he press release means that the Board of Regents is willing to let non-traditional providers–like museums and perhaps KIPP and TFA–award masters’ degrees instead of stodgy traditional places like Teachers College and other university-based programs.
Some TC students and faculty are dismayed ad have suggested that they might organize a protest.
The president of Teachers College, Susan Fuhrman, is a member of the board of directors of Pearson, the testing behemoth. Personally, I think this is a conflict of interest, but that’s just me.
To see a different side of Teachers College, once proud bearer of the progressive education banner, read this article by the distinguished psychologist Edmund Gordon, who says that the current misuse of standardized testing is “immoral.”
Dr. Fuhrman, Chancellor Tisch, pease read what Professor Gordon wrote. Then look in the mirror.
PS: I received a 2011 alumnae achievement award from TC. When I learned that Cathie Black–the recently named Chancellor of the NYC public schools–had been invited to deliver the keynote at the event, I declined to attend. Her resume proved that neither education nor experience was necessary. she was a refutation of all i thought TC stood for. She was fired before the event.
Trickle down economics is all about sucking up …
A comedian once commented that trickle down economics is when the poor get pissed on. . .
Diane,
This was on the Des Moines Register’s website today and was written by Amy Prime, elementary teacher from Newton, Iowa. It is one of the best education articles I have ever read. Thought you might be interested. Keep up the good work!
John
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20130506/OPINION01/305060036/Iowa-View-We-must-fight-to-keep-quality-in-teaching?Frontpage
Maybe TC can set up a BROAD program to give some credibility to the know-nothing spawn of Old man Eli.
What an embarrassment for Columbia!
“The president of Teachers College, Susan Fuhrman, is a member of the board of directors of Pearson, the testing behemoth. Personally, I think this is a conflict of interest, but that’s just me.”
This is well beyond a conflict of interest and is solidly into using ones professional position to facilitate advocacy for public policy without oversight and input from other stakeholders within the organization who have a legitimate right to weigh in on the decision. What did the board of the college say on this?
Tisch , if she had any scruples at all, would step down from her position with the state-SHE IS AN INFLUENCE PEDDLER FOR HER FAMILY BUSINESS INTEREST-K-12 INC.!!!
SHE’S NOTHING MORE THAN A CRIMINAL!
This is corruption-plain and simple.
As a TC grad it is disappointing that the administration is recognizing such a senseless endeavor. It also seems to be serious conflict of interests in a TC President on Pearson’s Board, particularly given its prominent role in destruction of public education in America.
classic political move.. pat each other on the back, give each other accolades, create a presumption of validity. TC reputation could be damaged forever
I hope this is okay to re-post from 19th ward parents facebook page?
Oprah, Oprah, Oprah. Tsk, tsk. Shame, shame. You too, Gail.
Remember when Joel Klein resigned as head of NYC schools in Nov. 2010? And Bloomberg appointed a woman who knows nothing about education.
“Cathie Black, a publishing executive, needed special exemption from the state to be chancellor due to her lack of experience,” the NY Daily News said.
Then Bloomberg’s staff recruits Oprah to publicly support Black’s appointment. Because moms will believe anything Oprah says about education, right?
“Ms. Winfrey eventually agreed to the endorsement, describing Ms. Black as “tough as nails” and “a tremendous champion for the children of New York” in an interview featured on the front page of The Daily News. “ (From the NYTimes)
This is a pretty funny story about a lot of wealthy, famous women who really don’t care at all about privatization of public education and what it is doing to children.
So let’s STOP watching OWN.
STOP shopping at Sam’s and Wallmart.
DON’T buy phones or tablets or anything that use the Microsoft operating system.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/city-officials-rallied-oprah-caroline-kennedy-back-cathie-black-article-1.1333836#ixzz2SXXm6qYu
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I’ve stopped doing all the things you have mentioned! I used to like Oprah, but now very disappointed. I won’t shop at Sam’s or Walmart, Costco is much kiinder to its employees. And haven’t felt a need to upgrade my technology. Totally overrated.
Diane,
This was sent to me by someone who made an email request to the USDOE to investigate the cheating in DC under Rhee.
Thank you for your email to Secretary Arne Duncan sharing your concern over alleged test score cheating within the District of Columbia public school system, under the authority of former School Chancellor Michelle Rhee. For several different reasons outlines in your communication, you have requested that the U.S. Department of Education (the Department) conduct an investigation of possible fraud, mistreatment of teachers, teachers changing answers to student’s completed tests, and overstated reform efforts that appear to have failed miserably. Your email was referred to the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) for review, and I am pleased to respond. First, I apologize for the delay in responding to your correspondence as our office receives a large volume of mail daily.
Unfortunately, the U.S. Department of Education (the Department) cannot intervene or make recommendations related to personnel, administrative policies or procedures within a local school district; these matters are the primary responsibility of State and local education agencies, unless specifically required in federal education statutes. As you may know, education is under the direct discretion of State and local governments, and the Department is prohibited by law from exercising any direction, supervision, or control over such matters as personnel, curriculum, the teaching of particular subjects, data collection and test administration, as well as student grade promotion, the duration of the school day, and fiscal resources.
Consequently, you may want to file a formal complaint with the Office of Inspector General (OIG) Hotline if you suspect fraud, waste, or abuse involving U.S. Department of Education (the Department) funds or programs. Complaints or concerns received through the Hotline are evaluated, consistent with established agency performance measures published in the OIG Annual Plan, and may be referred for OIG investigation, audit, inspection or other review. You can obtain formal complaint procedures for the OIG at:
http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/hotline.html.
I regret that the Department is not able to provide you with any additional assistance in this matter.
Sincerely,
Janice Brooks
Executive Office
Office of Elementary & Secondary Education (OESE)
400 Maryland Avenue
Washington, DC 20202
I received the same reply!
What does Bill Thompson have to say about the work Tisch has been doing in education? Presumably he approves. This is the “education candidate,” I’m told ad nauseam.
Diane, thank you very much for taking up this important issue. TC students, including the graduating class, are starting to name this as their fight. TC Alumni and parent activists from all around NYS are in the process of organizing to stand in solidarity with TC students and faculty.
What we have been experiencing here at TC is a neoliberal assault on democratic governance and an ideological cleansing by the corporate forces (which is happening everywhere including educational research association like AERA). The fact that the decision to award Merryl Tisch, without any internal selection committee, came down from the President’s Office is a prime manifestation of this, as it promotes neoliberal discourse while silencing its oppositions by using the institutional award.
Everything I’m seeing makes me feel that the timing is ripe for TC to take a leadership in resisting the neoliberal assault on higher education that’s manifested in the erosion of democratic governance (or should we call it “Presidential Control”?) and academic freedom.
Maxine Greene, a 95-year-old philosopher of education, aesthetic, and imagination, has taught me here at TC that the opposite of aesthetic is anesthetic. We have long been anesthetized, but are waking up. It’s time to begin again.
To find more about student protest at TC, please visit our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fuhrman-Cut-Ties-With-Pearson/447149925365555?fref=ts).
As a proud TC grad, I am saddened. It appears to be one more more betrayal of the progressive ideals on which the college was founded. The fact that the press release hails her work in evaluating teachers by test scores (opposed by most TC scholars) and data that ties schools of education to public school results, confounds me. What does TC stand for? I guess in the future we can expect TC student teachers to be placed in Scarsdale so that the school gets good ratings. Which of the following statements make her worthy of the award?
–M Tisch saying that if educators are not prepared for CCSS they are –”living under a rock”
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/03/27/26newyork_ep.h32.html
–M Tisch saying in NYT that now that teachers are evaluated under APPR, the public will not dislike them so much
–M Tisch donates 1 million, along with Bill Gates and charter schools, to fund the Fellows who have pushed the corporate agenda and test score evaluation policies.
http://www.cityandstateny.com/cash-flow/
I feel most sorry for the idealistic young teachers who worked hard for their degrees. They understand what is happening.
Re: “As Chancellor, Tisch, a former first-grade teacher, has championed public education as ‘the greatest civic and civil liberties issue of our time.’”
The commercialization of public education is to civil liberties what Virginia Slims™ were to women’s liberation.
And a lot of it being run out of the very same Madison Avenue shops, too.
You’ve come a long way, Baby!™
One of the hypocrisies that never fails to irritate me is how those well-positioned by birth or circumstance love to validate their importance through ceremonies that take turns bestowing awards, proclamations and plaques upon one another. They celebrate themselves and accept these empty wall-hanging tributes to their worth and power. Perhaps, it is a way the privileged compensate for two areas in which many are deficient–honesty and integrity.
And so Merryl Tisch will be feted by Teachers College. It’s a case of life imitating the Wizard of Oz, again. [Sorry, I didn’t mean to introduce any fiction into this.]
If you remember at the end, after Oz has been exposed as an imposter, he gives Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion a diploma, a heart-shaped clock and a medal–the trappings of what each felt he was lacking. The beauty of the story, of course, is realizing how much strength and character they innocently possessed and demonstrated on their journey. The symbols meant nothing.
The sad thing is that in the world of informational text, cardboard core heroes and academic honorees, the script has been flipped. For our famed TC honoree and the president of this esteemed institution of learning, make-believe has become a substitute for reality.
Fred Smith, TC Graduate
(Measurement and Evaluation)
*What would Robert Thorndike and Elizabeth Hagen have thought about this disgrace?
All schools and districts using Teachers College for Professional Development or “consulting” should opt of of TC services,
Don’t feed the beast, give TC a reciprocal view of your posteriors; TC has turned “it’s” back on you.
No one I have ever known has liked the Teachers College Professional Developement. If anything, they resent these “professionals” telling them what to do.
I didn’t resent the program, but I did resent being told this way or the highway. Lucy only wanted her program, yet it could be incorporated and altered to fit many programs. Let teachers decide how to implement it because it many of the strategies’ have value. But having 30 students on 30 different “Just Right” books each and every day can drive one to drink.
School Gal,
No teacher should have 30 kids in a classroom.
I can see teaching 5 periods a day with small groups of 6 or fewer in a private, quiet room for pull-out, but other than that, 30 kids is malpractice imposed on teachers.
In a middle school I have ELA classes of 25-30 and 125 in a day and everyone is to have their own just right book at all times. I am exhausted.
First elections were bought. Then school board elections. Now college presidencies. And let’s not forget the media. But you do kind of expect better from Columbia and PBS. The world is topsy turvy.
Is there any possibility that this has to do with TCRWP being left off the city’s recommended programs list a few months ago? Hmmmmm?
Merryl Tisch is the Doyenne of ___________________.
Let’s have a contest.
doyennes. NO, I think that would have to be the Rheeject.
Notice how in the masthead at
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:fykdBZ3WSTMJ:www.tc.columbia.edu/news.htm?articleID=8959+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
CT put a cropped picture of Dennis Walcott. . . . .DId they cut him down to size?
It’s interesting to notice that the TC executives and directors are different from many professors, students and alumni with regard to the reform movement, Merrly Tisch, and TFA.
Many educators are speculating that Lucy Calkins is protesting the CCSS because the feds and state ed departments are not mandating her workshop models any more, but are leaving it as an option. Lucy swears that her program and methods are already retrofitted with CCSS gadgets and are completely CCSS friendly.
I have found there are so many excellent aspects of her methods, as long as they are adapted to the particlular population you teach.
But why is she not far more catalytic in protesting this reform? If CT were to boot her, she’d still have enough resources accumulated over the years to live well.
What is her problem? She should be an arch enemy of Merryl Tisch by now.
Diane, I am delighted that you will be honored at the 2013 Queens College commencement with an honorary degree, and I am thrilled that you are honoring us by speaking at the Division of Education ceremony on the same day. I am so pleased that my college is honoring you, and not Tisch. We do not need more platitudes about the virtues of misplaced testing spoken by someone who does not understand public education. Your writing and your advocacy provide the voice our new teachers (and their faculty) need to hear. — Mary Bushnell Greiner
These relationships bring to mind just one word: incest!