This letter was written by a New York City teacher to his union president.
“I am writing as a loyal union member and as a special education teacher in a middle class ethnically diverse neighborhood who knows a lot about testing because I spent nearly two decades assessing disabled children as part of a school assessment team.until this Mayor deemed my psychometric skills to be worthless Nevertheless, under my belt is a lot of graduate level coursework as well as thousands of hours of field experience in administering and analyzing valid and reliable norm-referenced educational assessments.
“Therefore, based upon a lot of research and reading, I have to respectfully disagree with your statement that the Common Core Standards were developed by educators and that these standards represent a valid instrument to determine if a student is college or career ready.. The Common Core Standards were not developed by educators. Many of those who developed these standards are deeply involved in the corporate educational reform movement. Many articles I have read about its development stated that the developers basically worked backwards and often disregarded some basic tenets of child development. Furthermore, we are taking on faith standards that have not even been longitudinally tested. We are basically taking on faith that these standards will make students college or career ready. We all know that so many reforms in the past half a century failed because, like the Common Core, research was lacking. Where are those “open classrooms” or the “New Math” of my childhood? Both were just fads, just as I believe the Common Core is a fad, that led to no significant educational achievement.
“I, and many others, could only accept the efficacy of the Common Core Standards if there were real research over a number of years showing that students who learned by a curriculum derived from these standards had higher achievement than those students taught by a more traditional curriculum. I have a sense that many of your rank and file teachers are unwilling to put their careers on the line based on standards that I feel was developed with a political agenda. The agenda is to convince the American people that our present public school system is a failure and that only a privatized charter-based system is the way to go. A system, that will in the end, destroy our progressive union movement.
“Any assessment in which only 25% to 35% of students can pass is invalid. A valid test is standardized in such a way that it creates a bell curve. These assessments do not come even close to creating a bell curve. Instead these assessments look more like cliffs. Many students are set to fall off such a cliff–especially students with disabilities. Special educators are taught that to help students with learning challenges, one must start where they are at. One does not start at the bottom of an unclimbable precipice. I work with many students who have, through no fault of their own, significant language impairments that make this curriculum impossible to master. What will become of many of these students when they reach 8th grade and modified promotional standards terminate? How many times are we willing to leave back such students and destroy their self esteem before we realize that what is really needed are many vocational programs that will serve the needs of a very diverse disabled population? There is a big difference between a high IQ child with minor sensory problems and one who may have a severe language impairment which results in a borderline IQ. Sadly, this curriculum will result in many special education teachers, like me, who are willing to work with the latter child, being punished by someday being rated ineffective because of an invalid assessment based upon invalid standards that work against the educational needs of such children.
“Every child needs to reach their potential. Unfortunately, I see these Common Core Standards setting up roadblocks based upon a student’s economic class, language proficiency and disability. Those born economically advantaged will either go to private schools or charters exempt from these standards or whose parents have the resources to get them the extra tutoring needed to pass these tests. Those children born to parents who do not have the resources will end up in schools that will not have the funds necessary to create the academic intervention services needed to compensate for their parent/guardian’s inability to afford the extra tutoring needed to pass from grade to grade.
“Our focus is completely wrong. These standards are broken and unrepairable. I fear, in the end, it will lead to the dismantling of our system of public education and social stratification in this great nation. In the 18th century, our founding fathers created a flawed constitution called the Articles of Confederation that they realized was unworkable. But they were smart. They scraped the document and started anew. Many of the best and brightest, at that time, got together, and through compromise and negotiation, came up with something workable. They came up with a constitution that was flexible enough to change with the times. These Common Core standards are unchangeable stone monoliths that block our way to creating a society and nation that has always believed in education as the great leveler as well as creator of economic opportunity and social mobility.
“Let us think before we jump!”
Excellent letter!. But don’t expect an answer or change from Mulgrew who decided to back Thompson for Mayor, who in turn promotes an educational policy of giving teachers “more professional development and resources” so they can implement Common Core. Wow, that’s innovative. Meanwhile Mulgrew and the UFT is laying down on the job of protecting teachers where evidence is showing mass U ratings at a number of schools in some sort of covertly approved practice of discrimination. It’s not just that we don’t have Albert Shanker anymore, it looks like his memory of backing progressive educational reform while still protecting teachers may be gone also.
The letter is great.
Just to fine tune it.
any standardized test is an evaluation, not an assessment.
Any assessment is a subjective judgment.
Now what makes the new test scores interesting is that
they are neither an evaluation or an assessment.
It’s voodoo education
and Chancellor King is the voodoo medicine man.
Important point about the distinction between assessment and evaluation. As a career special education teacher (15 years in early childhood, 15 years in middle schools), I agree wholeheartedly with the letter writer that while the CC does damage to all children, it does a particularly extreme disservice to special needs students and their teachers.
This post is awesome…something that once it’s fined tunes just a bit, that I would LOVE to pass on to my principal and superintendent!
What is occurring in Connecticut?
quote: “the Connecticut Post is now reporting that due to human error, test results were reported incorrectly last year and that, “The Department hired Blum Shapiro, an auditing firm, to look at the state’s calculations and processes relating to test data and accountability.”..… unceremoniously last week, the State Department of Education pulled down the School Performance Reporting website and Tuesday, Commissioner of Education Stefan Pryor told reporters that the site, and index, contained mistakes.”
Pryor has as much credibility in CT as King does in NY. He and Vallas can’t even get their talking points straight.
“The expectation is that with the more rigorous and more challenging content of the Smarter Balanced exams, scores will initially drop,” said Pryor, who plans to meet with superintendents Wednesday. “The Common Core presents great opportunity for our state because the bar has been raised.”
VS.
““I am confident however, that the higher standards will significantly boost student performance,” said Vallas”
How many years do we drop until we “boost”? And then will there be a need for a new test once the kids are trained (not educated), so we start the whole process of dropping, training, boosting. We have to keep the testing industry busy and profiting. And this they call reform?
Also, see the Pelto post on this topic and check out comments:
http://jonathanpelto.com/2013/08/14/education-commissioner-pryor-hires-accounting-firm-to-validate-accuracy-of-standardized-test-scores/
Does anyone know of an analysis of the new Math Core Curriculum and a comparison of it to what is in current widely used textbooks or in “traditional” 8th Grade curricula? Without understanding this it is difficult to assess the validity of some of the points raised in the above letter.
I have just gone through a set of questions that supposedly reflect the 8th Grade curriculum (http://www.engageny.org/sites/default/files/resource/attachments/math-grade-8.pdf). The topics covered did not seem inappropriate to this age group. I would like to understand which questions/topics MS Math teachers feel are inappropriate.
I read this as the assessments are flawed, not the standards. And this post disregards this teacher’s colleagues who reviewed draft of the standards and whose revisions were incorporated into the final version. Reading “articles” isn’t research. And saying that the standards are not research-based presumes that all curriculums and standards are tested before being adopted. Wow! Not true. Imagine that NY state’s current curriculum, graduation rates, drop out rates, and maybe proficiency rates (lack validity unfortunately) are the research and evidence: is it working or not working for the majority of students? Our students deserve something better than “maybe” being prepared for college and 21st century jobs. As adults, we know that their barely meeting requirements for graduation and we expect them to go to college, play catch up and persevere through challenges that K-12 education didn’t prepare them for, graduate, and then find a job to be productive citizens in our society.
I wish this teacher would’ve spent some time adding an alternative that would improve students’ outcomes. Instead, they just complained about the proposed solution…Can we be more solution-diven?
Amen!!
Our minds are colonized by the language that we use. What is a job of the 21st Century? Fast food is from the 20th century. Also what is the meaning of “student outcomes”. What comes out of a student, their view of themselves in society their emotional caring of those around them? If our language is in a box, our thinking will be in the same box.
Joseph:
I do not disagree, but I am not sure of your point.
“Let us think before we jump.”
Gates and Broad say jump; Weingarten and Mulgrew ask how high.
I couldn’t have said it better!
Brilliantly said! Children of recent immigrants, special needs students and children who live in poverty must have educators who help them reach their potential. The educational path of all students is bumpy, but particularly so for these at-risk children. I completely agree with the author.
Let’s just for a moment assume that the NYS scores are “correct,” that only 25% to 30% of the students who took the test are, in fact, truly “college ready.” What then? Have, as Arne claims, the schools been lying to parents that their kids who graduated from high-school were college ready? And what DOES “career ready mean”? The ability to work at McDonald’s? Are “college ready” and “career ready” the SAME?
Please expound on this, very confusing, are you on a first name basis Arne Duncan. Give him our regards.
When the NYS scores were announced Arne Duncan gave a news conference in which he said that at last we have a true picture of the actual college and career readiness of the students in the NYS schools, and that the public schools had been lying to parents and the society about the readiness of the students to move on.
Joseph, when I use “schools” in that way it is only a metonym. I mean, of course, the principals who sign the diplomas, plus the teachers who give the grades and certify that a student has attended a class and should have credit for it.
I more or less know what college-ready is, since I taught English for 33 years in a high-school. But I don’t know what the masters of the common core mean by “career” ready. Do they mean educated enough to become an apprentice to a plumber? Or educated enough to work at a fast food place? Or ready to go into the factories, as my grandfather did with an 8th grade education, and DID have a career moving up from toolmaker to superintendent of production (until he was fired during a business take over). Or do the masters of the common core assume that the only good jobs in the future will be technical ones in which a serious component of abstract thinking will be required, in which case “college ready” will be the same as “career ready.” No college, no career.
Pole dancing is probably not a career, though it is in line to become an Olympic sport. How much education do you have to have to have a career as a pole dancer? Or a hamburger flipper? Or a freelance yard clean up person? Or a roofer? On the other hand if these are “careers,” i.e. meaning “work,” career ready means NOT ready for college.
Harlan
I suspected that you were not a warrior but cared about education. Keep your concerns coming. I will object to any move that subject you to any obstacles on this web site. You are a gifted resource.
best, Joe
Harlan:
Yours is a very pertinent question. These are real possibilities. I looked at some of the responses to NAEP items for 8th Grade Math. The number apparently getting very basic question wrong is unnerving to say the least. However, the meaning of these scores are only going to be clarified when we get to see the questions and the distribution of responses. All else is speculation or commentary on the apparently lousy way Pearson went about developing and implementing the curriculum and assessments. The latter of course does not bear on the actual substance of the curriculum and the assessments. If the curriculum and assessments are flawed then, of course, one can point to the lousy process.
In due respect Harlan, have schools been lying? A school is a building and can not speak.
Who are we talking about? Also, what careers are we talking about? Trying to work with you in due respect. You may have a great insight on this. I liked your last question. Keep in touch. Like your two tone picture too. green/blue
See above, Joseph. My photo is how I look when I receiving through my Tinfoil Hat.
Harlan
You may have the answers.
I am on Long Island. Keep your ideas coming. I will put them out there.
No judgment! I respect you experience and will honor it.
Joe
Harlan,
You have a fan club! Who knew? I prefer the kinder gentler Harlan myself.
Trying to learn more.
God bless you on your own.
Actually I was complimenting Harlan. We have agreed and disagreed for months now. He’s coming to CT someday and we are picking blueberries together.
I am definitely not alone. We have a crew here in CT and we are always learning more as well.
And besides learning, we need to share what we are learning.
Reblogged this on Critical Classrooms, Critical Kids and commented:
Intelligent letter written by a NYC SpEd teacher to Michael Mulgrew, UFT president.
There was a question about how we use language. Words matter. Harlan talked about all of the variables when using “college and career ready” . It shows that the words are meaningless but sound good. This may be what Orwell means when he uses doublethink where two words and ideas become one and accepted when they mean different things.
Totalitarian states focus on the future as utopia while children are on a path of being
“unemployment and student loan default ready” as our economy collapses around us.
Reblogged this on PUMABydesign001's Blog and commented:
I am so proud that this teacher has come forward. While, I have no confidence in the teacher’s union or its leader, I can only hope that others will follow her suit.
[…] Reblogged from Diane Ravitch’s blog: This letter was written by a New York City teacher to his union president. “I am writing as a loyal union member and as a special education teacher in a middle class ethnically diverse neighborhood who knows a lot about testing because I spent nearly two decades assessing disabled children as part of a school assessment team.until this Mayor deemed my psychometric skills to be […] […]
Reblogged this on onewomansjournal.
As far as the union goes it’s like Sam Rothstein says to the gaming commissioner’s brother-in-law in the film Casino, “Either your in on it or too studio to realize what’s happening, in either case I can’t have you work for me!”
I love him. I am of both the “new math” and “open classroom” era – as student, not educator. The fact that the letter is to the union president, not an administrator, politician, educational reformer, or some local media outlet, says much about all the challenges teachers face.