Tim Farley is a principal. His wife Jessica is a veteran teacher. They are also parents. In the letter here that Tim wrote, he speaks as an educator and a parent of the damage done by today’s ill-conceived policy changes, mistakenly called “reform.”
Tim Farley writes:
My wife and I are the proud parents of four school aged children. They are in grades K, 3, 5, and 7. I happen to be a building Principal in the district my children attend. I have been in education for 22 years. My wife was a teacher for 12.
The transformational changes to public education over the past few years has been quite alarming, not only from an educator’s perspective, but from a parent’s perspective as well.
We have observed a change in how our children are perceiving their educational experience. A couple of years ago, all of them were excited about school and all the wonderful things they would learn. My wife and I no longer observe this. Our children have lost their love of school.
Every week, at least two of our children have meltdowns over the developmentally inappropriate homework assignments, the poorly worded questions, the amount of homework that comes home, repetitive and inane assignments, etc.
We cast no blame on our children’s teachers. They are the kind of teachers every parent would want for their children. They are doing their jobs to the best of their abilities even though the great majority of teachers knows that the reforms they are implementing are truly harmful to children. However, they have no choice because their jobs are literally at stake. Administrators are terrified to speak out publicly because SED is quick to intimidate those who do not comply with their dictates.
My wife and I cast the blame exactly where it belongs: John King, Merryl Tisch, Andrew Cuomo, Arne Duncan, Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, the Board of Regents, et al.
These corporate reformers did an excellent job in denigrating teachers and the profession. They systematically manufactured a crisis that US schools are not competitive internationally (e.g. – the PISA study that Dr. Tricozzi wrote that corrects the fallacy that our schools are failing). Our educational system isn’t perfect, but it is far from being in a crisis. Actually, we should be proud of our achievements. But accolades do not sell expensive data systems that deprive our students of their privacy. Accolades do not sell software that “fixes” the students who do not achieve at the same rate as their peers.
My wife and I are quite frankly disgusted. We can no longer tolerate the abuse of our children. We will likely pull our children out of a school district that we hold most dear; a district in which we have made our home for the past nine years. We will likely homeschool our children unless drastic changes to these reforms take place.
My feeling is that we will not be the only parents making a decision of this magnitude. Fortunately, my wife has many years experience as a teacher, so our children will do well. But I feel badly for the parents who would like to do the same thing but due to their individual circumstances cannot.
I’m tired. My wife is tired. My kids are tired. My teachers are tired. When will this insanity end? When will the parents rise up and take back their schools from the billionaires?
Signed,
Tired dad, educator, administrator
Sorry for the pain these professionals and their children are experiencing , but so glad he has the backbone and passion to speak out against the madness. Every parent needs to stand up now!
Here’s a parody of New York State Ed.
Commissioner’s pushing of excessive
high stakes testing and the dubious
and unproven Common Core
standards:
Excellently put. Please don’t let them win by switching your kids, please keep fighting. So many parents are just now waking up. We need you. Maybe now other admins will feel safety in numbers and speak up as well.
I think it will take pulling kids out of the system in droves before anyone will actually wake up and change what is happening in education in this country….. those of us who homeschool saw the writing on the wall a bit earlier because of our own individual circumstances, but this isn’t surprising to us at all…. Parents keep forgetting that the schools work for THEM… you have to take back your school system…. or leave it… or suffer the consequences of staying in it…..
Oh so sad and true.
Diane,
Maybe we have a new potential hero in Texas, Representative Lon Burnam. I received this Alert this week from his office concerning the proliferation of Charters in Texas and the potential harm to district credit ratings (financing for new construction). I have previously been contacted by a person doing research for him concerning a presentation I was doing at the TASA-TASB conference this last September titled “School Reform and the Danger To Our communities”. (Diane, I promise I did not plagiarize your book, I had to submit the proposal early last summer!) This contact was very helpful and supportive. By the way, my session was well attended (150) and attendees, particularly school board members, were very attentive. I have been asked to present now to local superintendents and a northeast Texas School Board gathering. The ALERT is below.
ED-ALERT
OCTOBER 23, 2013
VOLUME 33
The latest news on education in Texas from
State Representative Lon Burnam, District 90
IN THIS ISSUE:
Moody’s finds increased charter enrollment may endanger local district credit ratings
Make your voice heard on charter applications:
State Board of Education on November 20, 2013
As the State Board of Education meets to consider whether to grant final approval or veto the charter applications tentatively approved by the Commissioner of Education, I want to highlight three recent news articles that make it very clear why we should pay close attention to charter school enrollment and expansion in local school districts.
A study conducted by Moody’s Investor Service describes the downward spiral that may result from increased charter enrollment in urban districts. It’s critical that we understand the long‐term impact that increased charter enrollment may have on local school districts so that we can take steps to strengthen public schools and create a level playing field in which they can thrive.
The State Board of Education will consider final approval of four new charter applications at its next meeting on November 19 – 22, 2013. These applications, if approved, will increase charter enrollment in North Texas, San Antonio, Austin, and El Paso. I urge parents, districts, and education leaders to make your voice heard at the State Board meeting.
The four articles are below and the information for commenting on or participating in the charter approval process is at the end of this Ed Alert.
Moody’s Investor Service – Increased charter enrollment may endanger district credit ratings
Moody’s released a new study that raises concerns about the credit rating of local school districts in urban areas where charter enrollment is growing.
“The dramatic rise in charter school enrollments over the past decade is likely to create negative credit pressure on school districts in economically weak urban areas…Charter schools can pull students and revenues away from districts faster than the districts can reduce their costs. As some of these districts trim costs to balance out declining revenues, cuts in programs and services will further drive students to seek alternative institutions including charter
schools.”
Full article:
Charter schools pose greatest credit challenge to school districts in economically weak urban
areas (10.15.13)
https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-Charter-schools-pose-greatest-credit-challenge-to-schooldistricts–
PR_284505?WT.mc_id=NLTITLE_YYYYMMDD_PR_284505%3c%2fp%3e
Washington Post – Downward spiral for urban districts
*A Washington Post article provides a concise summary of the findings in the Moody’s study:
“And some urban districts face a downward spiral driven by population declines. It begins with people leaving the city or district. Then revenue declines, leading to program and service cuts. The cuts lead parents to seek out alternatives, and charters capture more students. As enrollment shifts to charters, public districts lose more revenue, and that can lead to more cuts.
Rinse, Repeat.”
Full article:
Charter schools are hurting urban public schools, Moody’s says (10.15.13)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/10/15/charter‐schools‐are‐hurtingurban‐
public‐schools‐moodys‐says/
Nashville – Charter expansion creates a tipping point for public schools
The scenario described in the Moody’s study is playing out not only in large urban areas such as Philadelphia, but also in smaller urban districts such as Nashville. A recent article quoted district officials in Nashville who are worried that the district budget may be reaching a tipping point as a result of increased charter enrollment.
“Too many charter schools too fast could force the district ‘off the fiscal cliff’ unless there are proper guardrails’ in place, school officials say.”
“ ‘There is a lot of pressure on us because everyone wants to come here and open a charter school. How many schools the community can afford to go to scale is a real question,’ said Jesse Register, Metro Nashville Public Schools director of schools who said he doesn’t know where the tipping point is.”
Full article:
Could charters break MNPS bank? (3.31.13)
http://nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city‐news/could‐charters‐break‐mnps‐bank
Make Your Voice Heard: Public Testimony on New Charter Applications
The State Board of Education will meet November 19 – 22, 2013 in Austin to consider four new charter applications that have been approved by the Commissioner of Education. The Board can take no action and let the Commissioner’s approvals stand, or it can veto the applications.
Public testimony will be allowed at the meeting of the Committee on School Initiatives on Wednesday, November 20. The committee will make recommendations to the full State Board.
Committee on School Initiatives meeting
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
8:00 AM
Room 1‐111
Travis Building – 1701 N. Congress (Austin)
People who wish to testify should register online in advance of the meeting. Online registration starts on Friday, November 15 and ends on Monday, November 18 at 5 PM. Registration on the day of the hearing (November 20) will be considered “late” and may not be allowed if time is limited.
To register online:
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=25769804082
Charter applications under consideration
The commissioner of Education approved the following charter applications on September 27, 2013 that
will be considered by the State Board in November:
Carpe Diem Schools – San Antonio
El Paso Leadership Academy
Great Hearts Academies Dallas (North Texas)
Magnolia and Redbud Montessori for All (Austin)
To review new charter applications (listed on the last page):
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4_wide.aspx?id=2147507674
Make Your Voice Heard: Public Testimony on New Charter Applications
The State Board of Education will meet November 19 – 22, 2013 in Austin to consider four new charter applications that have been approved by the Commissioner of Education. The Board
can take no action and let the Commissioner’s approvals stand, or it can veto the applications. Public testimony will be allowed at the meeting of the Committee on School Initiatives on
Wednesday, November 20. The committee will make recommendations to the full State Board.
Committee on School Initiatives meeting
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
8:00 AM
Room 1‐111
Travis Building – 1701 N. Congress (Austin)
People who wish to testify should register online in advance of the meeting. Online registration starts on Friday, November 15 and ends on Monday, November 18 at 5 PM. Registration on the day of the hearing (November 20) will be considered “late” and may not be allowed if time is limited.
To register online:
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=25769804082
Charter applications under consideration
The commissioner of Education approved the following charter applications on September 27, 2013 that
will be considered by the State Board in November:
****Carpe Diem Schools – San Antonio
****El Paso Leadership Academy
****Great Hearts Academies Dallas (North Texas)
****Magnolia and Redbud Montessori for All (Austin)
To review new charter applications (listed on the last page):
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4_wide.aspx?id=2147507674
###
If anyone knows of documented negative actions by the Charters, please send links to bendeancarson@gmail.com
Why was Bill gates been allowed to earn the equivalent of 50% of the nation’s wealth? No one asks that. In Germany, every company has a board with 50% union and 50% executives. The pay is much fairer. This “winner take all economy” won’t last. You know America is a very young country, and we have done almost everything wrong lately. Ironically my nephew goes to charter school that is doing what all public schools should do. He is getting a Classical Education, in the best sense. My niece is lost in New Jersey somewhere (in a public school) taking test after test. Now, I want my voucher. If they are going to destroy the public schools, I want that money to send my kids to an elite private school. I am sounding like a Republican. This may be the plan.
John – I know you are joking but you do know that a voucher will pay only a small portion of an elite private school’s tuition, right? Hope you can afford the rest, including money for uniforms, school trips & other activity fees. Be prepared, too, to be pressured into donating annually to the capital fund, attending the fancy school auction, & contributing to other school fundraisers. Better hope that your kid is accepted into that elite private school since space is limited & your kid will need to meet the school’s academic prerequisites for entry.
Vouchers will NEVER be the answer. It’s a ridiculous, faulty concept &
misleads people. The poor children of Washington, D.C. (or the middle class for that matter), won’t be attending Sidwell Friends anytime soon under this model.
What we both believe is that our public schools should be more like private schools in curriculum, freedom from standardized testing, small class size, extracurricular activities available for all (because after all, they need everyone in the school to participate in order to field sports teams) & an abundance of the arts. The classical education you are looking for!
Diane has reported to us that such a place like this exists. It’s called Finland…the land where no private schools exist and all public schools are just as good as any private ones would be.
If only Gates & the Billionaire Boys Club had invested in this model & “brought it up to scale” (as they like to speak so they sound all business-like & really smart), how better off all of our children would be.
Total wealth in the United States is something in the order of 56 trillion dollars. I think thar Bill Gates wealth is in the relatively low billions.
I would be surprised if your voucher will exceed 30% of the cost of an elite private school. As they do with financial aid students now, the elite private schools will be extremely selective, In addition, how many voucher students do you think an elite private schools will admit?
that should be how many new voucher students (once the floodgate open, I suspect many people with children enrolled prior to vouchers will get a voucher)
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
I am a teacher in the district where my kids attend school. This year, our 5th grade students are being forced by our high-achieving district to take every unit test for math directly from the Pearson textbook test, which means she is filling in bubble tests for part of her grade (as if it weren’t bad enough just for the high stakes tests). My 5th grade daughter is able to demonstrate that she knows the material to her teacher, but the multiple choice format confuses her. When I asked her teacher to estimate the percentage of mistakes she thinks my daughter made on her last test due to the multiple choice component, she said 70%. That is insane.
I am trying to communicate with my district to stop the test driven instruction. They are turning into a test prep center. They used to focus on creativity, critical thinking, and student engagement. I cried the other night and tried to imagine how I could make ends meet if I did put my daughter in private school. I fantasized, and then I thought that I just can’t let them win.
The way that test prep makes kids feel is part of the maniacal plan, and it took a great understanding of psychology for the reformers to think through how to push the buttons of parents. As a parent I am outing the nonsense of the standardized tests, and now the standardized unit tests, to my 10 year-old. I am telling her they mean nothing to us. Now even when we opt out of the state tests, the school is regularly assessing her the same way. I can’t think of a better way to get parents to pull kids out of public school. It seems that our schools are clueless about the real agenda. If we leave, we are playing right into their plan, though I totally understand the desire to run. As an educator, I see that as parents, we have the power to rebel. If we all pull our kids out, public schools will become history. I hate that my kids are the pawns. I hate that I have to spend so much of my life fighting against this wave of stupidity and illogical decisions, politicians, and philanthropists. I hate it, but I need to fight until I can’t take it anymore. I can’t imagine the absence of our public schools…yet, I know it is possible.
I know I am just an ant in this fight, but instead of quitting, I remind myself about that little old ant who wanted to move a rubber tree plant. Everyone knows an ant can’t…. Right?
Danielle, you ARE the change we are waiting for! You are a warrior and inspire us all. Thank you. We are building to critical mass. Courage.
Laurel,
I woke up this morning, and thought I would see if just one person responded to my comment. I am so grateful for your encouragement & support – you have no idea. I am putting your comment on my desk. It gives me hope and strength to keep fighting. Thank you.
Danielle,
Keep up the fight! As the Quixotic Quest Bandwagon muleteer I know how frustrating it is to attempt to change educational malpractices that are so culturally ingrained to seem so “natural” and that harm many students.
“As a parent I am outing the nonsense of the standardized tests, and now the standardized unit tests, to my 10 year-old. I am telling her they mean nothing to us. Now even when we opt out of the state tests, the school is regularly assessing her the same way.”
I continually tell my students that grades and these standardized tests are lies, falsehoods and illogical invalidities. The students know that by the sheer weight of having been under that regime for so long but they have no idea how to counteract it. I tell them to have their parents opt them out, for them to refuse to participate and to otherwise throw wrenches into the educational malpractice assembly line gears. They appreciate hearing this from a “supposed authority” the teacher.
I see you have joined the Quixotic Quest to rid the world of these nefarious educational malpractices. Como decimos en español, ¡Muy bien! For the most damning evidence of the insanities that are educational standards, standardized testing and the grading of students I invite you to read and understand Noel Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700 I am rereading it again for about the 15th time-more or less-and I know I will get something new out of it again!
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A quality cannot be quantified. Quantity is a sub-category of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category by only a part (sub-category) of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as one dimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing we are lacking much information about said interactions.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it measures “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
I am also a teacher with a kid who is now in college. I have NO idea how he did on ANY of his fifth grade tests and neither does he. None of the state tests prevented him from moving on and going to college. This reward and punishment system we have going on here is ridiculous – read Alfie Kohn!
Danielle, you’re making my heart ache. So sorry this is
happening. I have to tell my son the same thing, that in the end,
these tests mean nothing, only the big tests to get into college.
Everything else is to tell me where to pinpoint his next year’s
education (we homeschool) and how well his teacher is doing.
Nothing more, nothing less. Good luck in your continued
fight!
I am a former high school English teacher, and I resigned 3 years ago to raise my young children. I am heartbroken that my profession, as I knew it, no longer exists. I planned on returning next year, but there is no way I can. It would sicken me. I am also planning on homeschooling until authentic education returns to public schools.
Principal Farley,
Well said. Unfortunately, the reforms are working exactly as planned. The reformers want to destroy real Public Schools and their focus is now on driving suburban patents away from public schools and to demand alternatives. Testing and Standardization are the weapons of misinstruction.
Educational malpractice is their legacy.
Good luck with your family and your career.
This post truly saddened me. Regarding the amount of homework he mentions, can anyone please tell me how much homework for second grade was the norm before the reform movement and how much is the norm now (looking for number of minutes per night)? Am finding the homework situation to be all consuming in our household.
One commonly used “standard” formula was 10 minutes per grade, so 10 minutes for 1st grade, 20 for 2nd, and so on. So why the hell is my third-grader routinely spending an hour or more DAILY on homework?!?!? (And yes, this has been brought up to the school and we’re reducing it, but I want to cut it off at 30 minutes – and this INCLUDES the 20 minutes of expected daily reading with its 5-10 minutes of writing-up what they’ve read.
I want my kid back!
Take your child back, Deb, take him/her back. Turn the timer on and when it goes ding, quit doing the work and go out and have some fun with your child. If he/she doesn’t finish, write a note each and every time to the teacher that you expect the teacher to give the class and your child time in class to do the work. Each and every time until and after your hand falls off from writing so much.
I feel like our nights are one long struggle to complete homework. We both work full time and then the whole evening is spent trying to get homework out of the way. It’s supposed to be 45 minutes but it always seems to taker longer. Sometimes my second grader is still finishing homework at 9:00 pm.
Thank you, Principal Farley, for speaking out about this. We need a lot more courageous administrators like you who are not willing to be complicit in this ugliness being visited upon the nation’s children!
Thank you Tim. I am imploring you to continue this fight and take further steps. You have personal examples of how these mandates have harmed children. Someone needs to file a class action suit against the DOE for the pain and suffering these untested standards have caused on our nation’s children. When EPIC filed suit against the weakened safeguards of FERPA a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit ruling that EPIC didn’t have standing to challenge the law. So someone with standing needs to file on behavior of all our children.
Sorry, that should say on behalf of all our children.
Keep speaking all parents of elementary children. If you don’t speak now, can you imagine what high school might look like? Apparently, I’ll be homeschooling the grand kids because Obama, Duncan, King, Deasy, Rhee, Christie, Bloomberg, Cuomo, and you name them in Michigan and Indiana, et. als reforms are basically, satanic. Strong word, but maybe they should see it. It could enlighten them.
Yes, keep speaking, but also keep in mind that reformers have a sort attention span in education. They’ll move on to something else, and in a few years we’ll have the next “big thing” in education. Someone is always hawking a new product, pushing a new teaching method or a new learning software that we MUST use. As a teacher, I wish they’d just let us teach.
This is an important article and I appreciate you openness and honesty.
I want to add a small bit of hope to your words if I may.
I teach in a Title I, high FRL (93%+), high ELL (56%), “F” school in Florida. This year has been a living nightmare since the state took over our school in August and our district has gone all out with every crappy deform fad that can be imagined.
Last night we had report card conferences for the 1st quarter. I don’t believe in avoiding the truth so I spoke to every single parent about the “F” grade and what it means and how the state DOE and district bully us at every turn. I was also required to inform the parents about the state school “choice” law that allows them to transfer to a non “F” school if they so choose.
I was stunned to hear from every single parent that they didn’t care at all about the fake “F” grade — they knew all about the state raising the cut scores while making the FCAT tests exponentially harder last year. The parents all said they stayed with our school because they know we care about their children and we teach them what they need to know.
It was a humbling and encouraging experience for me and it gave me the resolve to keep plugging away despite the daily humiliations and bullying from the reformists from the district office and the state DOE. If I have these parents beside me in the fight then I know that I can keep challenging the ridiculousness and making fun of the obsession with “rigor” and all the other nonsense. I promised every single parent that I would protect the childhood of their little 1st graders to the best of my ability despite the inappropriate and insane state and district mandates.
I will keep fighting and I know that many, many others are fighting alongside me. We have to do it for the children.
Thank you for standing up to the corporate deformers. Deformers are fearful of parents and teachers who vote and who file open records requests for their bogus corporate contracts and related federal and state grants.
We have the majority on our side. The tide is turning since many parents are following the money.
Mr. Farley,
As a teacher who is afraid of the repercussions if I ” rock the boat” too much, I truly admire and appreciate what you’ve written. I’m so sorry for what your family has endured. What a tragic situation…that parents like you are having to make a decision you never wanted to make. I agree with those who say the corporate reformers will have won if enough parents pull their kids out of public school. And yet…..what’s our first responsibility as parents? The well-being of our children. If I saw the love of learning slowly draining from my children and things didn’t start improving SOON, I’d be looking at my other options, for sure.
I’m beginning to see that Common Core means bad teaching.
Thank you for standing up to the corporate deformers.
Well, Obama is still asleep. In fact, he promotes this horrid stuff. TFA-ers are now highly qualified in the DEAL cut. I am so tired of his DEALS. DEALS,DEALS, DEALS…that is all there is…DEALS. The DEALS are also horrid, and well…ASK, “Cui bono?”
CCSS is a boondoggle for corporate America…one more time…so blatant, too. Those who do not see, well…maybe choose not to see.
“Tired!” That’s a word we’ve heard here, too. Our two youngest boys (nine and twelve) have some of the same reactions. Our teachers (some of the best) at the local public school are under pressure regularly to push crazy testing programs foisted by public figures who have put their kids into very very private schools (Barack Obama — Sidwell Friends; University of Chicago Lab School; Rahm Emanuel, University of Chicago Lab School… etc.) and then conjure up their talking points and overfinanced corporate media attacks on the rest of us.
My favorite moments this week were when our youngest, Josh, was creating a series of duct tape wallets and making up a marketing catalogue. He’s selling them to his third grade peers for a couple of dollars each. It’s not an “assignment” in “financial management.” He just discovered an interest in it and after discovering the current varieties of duct tape (they’ve even got one version with skulls and other scary stuff) went and did it.
The sad moments came when he was being pushed on some other stuff…
And we’re not against “testing.” Just against stupid mandates that are developmentally wrong and scientifically fraudulent. Which, in Chicago, is everything Rahm’s Board of Education wants of us…
All of this “Sudden” awareness , is SAD.
“The transformational changes to public education over the past few years has been quite alarming, not only from an educator’s perspective, but from a parent’s perspective as well.”
“Over the past few years” is delusion defined.
TEACHER of the year 1991, John Taylor Gatto, pulled NO punches as to the intent
and formation of Public SCHOOLING .
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/
“We cast no blame on our children’s teachers….they have no choice because their jobs are literally at stake”
No choice, just following orders…BS! Everyone has a choice which reflects their
INTEGRITY, their HONOR, their CONSCIENCE.
J T Gatto: “no longer wished to “hurt kids to make a living.” Advocates HOMESCHOOLING as does Tim Farley NY Principal
“My wife and I are quite frankly disgusted. We can no longer tolerate the abuse of our children. We will likely pull our children out of a school district that we hold most dear; a district in which we have made our home for the past nine years. We will likely homeschool our children …”
Any way you cut it, YOU work for the Government. The Government DOES NOT
Work for YOU. Stop pretending…
“no longer wished to “hurt kids to make a living.”
“All of this “Sudden” awareness , is SAD”.
Not only sad but tragic, disastrous, calamitous, catastrophic, cataclysmic, devastating, terrible, dreadful, awful, appalling, dismal, horrendous.
Where have these educators been who so “fear for their jobs” that they wouldn’t speak up, wouldn’t refuse to harm the children, who have gone along to get along.
Yes, the public school administrators and teachers who have “gone along to get along” are as much to blame as the edudeformers for the current state.
I shed no tears when you cry me a river about the current state of educational malpractice when you have been a GAGAer*.
*Going Along to Get Along (GAGA): Nefarious practice of most educators who implement the edudeformers agenda even though the educators know that those educational malpractices will cause harm to the students and defile the teaching and learning process. The members of the GAGA gang are destined to be greeted by the Karmic Gods of Retribution upon their passing from this realm.
Karmic Gods of Retribution: Those ethereal beings specifically evolved to construct the 21st level in Dante’s Hell. The 21st level signifies the combination of the 4th (greed), 8th (fraud) and 9th (treachery) levels into one mega level reserved especially for the edudeformers and those, who, knowing the negative consequences of the edudeformers agenda, willing implemented it so as to go along to get along. The Karmic Gods of Retribution also personally escort these poor souls, upon their physical death, to the 21st level unless they enlighten themselves, a la one D. Ravitch, to the evil and harm they have caused so many innocent children, and repent and fight against their former fellow deformers. There the edudeformers will lie down on a floor of smashed and broken ipads and ebooks curled in a fetal position alternately sucking their thumbs to the bones while listening to two words-Educational Excellence-repeated without pause for eternity.
Yes, no brick and Duane, if only we could have all been as heroic and selfless and farsighted as you both have been and are still and sacrificed ourselves, our expensive educations and credentials, the well-being and livelihood of our families, our careers, our mortgages, our car payments, our children’s college tuition, our retirement accounts, our insurance policies, and our future prospects in service of the ideal then this whole school reform/deform movement never would have happened.
Milton Friedman’s economic educational theories would never have been espoused and embraced by all the soulless Republicans and Democrats who worship at the altar of greed and Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Walton family, and all the other billionaires would never have begun dabbling in public schools, never would have seen the amount of money spent on education, and never would have lusted after that money for themselves. Bill Clinton would never have conspired with George H. W. Bush to produce the ridiculous A Nation at Risk and Teddy Kennedy would never have signed onto No Child Left Behind. Arne Duncan would never have been hired to run the USDOE and produced the abomination known as Race to the Top if selfish, foolish teachers had not acquiesced in their own destruction. BAD TEACHERS!
Victim blaming is so here and now! Just like the tone argument in another of Diane’s postings here today it is so much easier to lay the burden on the teachers than to examine and evaluate how the workers are responsible for the directives of their state legislatures, the federal government, and local school boards that can fire them on a whim.
If only we were all such heroes as you two instead of being culpable cowards and accomplices! Your shining light blinds me with your purity and mansplaining abilities. I bow down to you in awe. NOT.
So, when I lose my job for bucking the system and not giving the tests, are you going to put a roof over my head, feed me & my cat, and put gas in my car? No? How about health insurance so I can continue to get treatment for my chronic immune condition? Again, no? Then don’t tell me to choose integrity, honor and my conscience.
I have nobody to help me if I lose my job. I don’t think the pay from McDonald’s or WalMart will allow me to support myself, and they certainly aren’t going to provide me with health insurance.
I’m in a state where, if the parents opt out, the student can’t earn a diploma. Good luck with that.
Mango, you are what you are. I didn’t tell you to choose intergrity,
honor, and your conscience. If you don’t connect your actions
as related to your integrity, honor, or conscience, have at it…
NoBrick,
I totally understand what you’re saying and I fight myself saying the same. As a former teacher, I can tell you that education mirrors society. I was a rogue educator (& even called that by a principal) who heard and saw what was going on around me, but chose to stay so long because I felt I couldn’t leave kids in their clutches and had to make whatever inroads I could to change education in my little corner of the universe.
Just like people like you are fighting for a better society, teachers are fighting for a better education. It’s just not working anymore. It needs to implode. It’s coming.
lbam723, More and more people are “connecting the dots”, so to
speak. Once they get past the indoctrination they can see the
dialog is contradicted by reality.
Breaking the strategic stupor, is usually met with a strong resistance
to negative feedback.
I point out that the CHILDREN are the victims, as did J T Gatto.
Tim Farley NY Principal, and Duane Swacker.
All of a sudden, I’m heroic and selfless, and sexist (mansplaining)
to boot. TSK, TSK…
It’s hard finding any common ground with anyone so easily
compromised.
At the end of last year, I saw the retiring kindergarten teacher and some helpers taking cart loads of blocks, picture cards, dramatic play materials, and so on to the new preschool. She explained that these materials could not longer be used in kindergarten because the “expectation these days is the academics.” I questioned her as to whether she thought the expectations were appropriate, and she didn’t think they were, but seemed to think that it was all inevitable.
Before school started this year, kindergartners were invited to participate in a jump start program. The purpose was to teach routines, get the children familiar with the school, and teach them how to enter their lunch codes, and how to be safe on the play ground. The teachers could also get their own jump starts on the 25 pages with of kindergarten assessments that the state is requiring per student.
As a special education teacher, I am used to kindergarten teachers telling me they think they have one of mine early in the year. I explain that I am already informed of which students arrived to kindergarten with IEPs. Those students usually have a diagnosed disability and were served in preschool. I can certainly observe the children in question and give advice as to whether they should be referred for a student intervention meeting. The difference in those conversations about possibly having one of mine is that the focus used to be on social and behavioral skills, and now it is on the academics. I hardly think that a beginning kindergartener needs to be referred for special education because she is not yet writing her name or can’t copy September from the document camera or only knows 6 letter sounds.
I realized that I failed to make my point in my ramblings above. It was to point out the absurdness of all the rushing and racing to push academics at younger and younger ages, and to consider that the children who aren’t as ready as others to rush into reading and math are in need of special education. Hearing the near daily calls over the loud speakers for the custodian to come to Room 10 for a wet clean up should be enough to remind us that these are very young children.
More than 14 years ago, the resistance to high stakes testing was trying to gain further support beyond the Fair Test ListServe, Susan Ohanian’s tireless work, our work in Chicago with Substance, and a handful of others, Mickey VanderWerker (who was organizing in southern Virginia) first reported that the stress on test day was causing kids to get sick and teachers to have to clean up. Since then, these monstrosities expanded from many states (including the State of Illinois) and those who were taking corporate pushiness seriously to everywhere. Mickey’s children now have children of their own, and the sorrow is that we failed to build the resistance last time around. We can’t fail again this time, or we’ll be having this conversation against in ten or fifteen years — and another generation will be the wreckage from these monstrous policies.
The damage done to a generation of children can’t be repaired, and the people who did it — including the current and past presidents of the USA — can’t undo what their hypocritical policies have been doing to children of all races, classes and ages. How much more hypocritical can the current national celebrities on this be than a family that sends their children to Sidwell Friends (the Obamas) or the University of Chicago Lab School (the Emanuels of Chicago) — neither of which would do this to human children.
I’m too angry to write more, having read another hundred or so of these narratives the past few days and nights. I’m proud to be working with the leaders of some of the resistance here in Chicago. And to be working at the Chicago Teachers Union, where last night we gathered more than 2,000 friends and members for our annual political dinner — the LEAD (Lesiglators, Educators Appreciation Dinner). During the dinner I spoke with many people, including state union and political officials, about book clubbing using “Reign of Error.” We’ll see how that goes as we build the Opt Out movement for 2014.
I, 100% agree with Mr. Farley. The blame definitely rests with John King, Merryl Tisch, Andrew Cuomo, Arne Duncan, Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, and every other “reformer” promoting these abuses on children, educators and parents. Shame on each and every one of them.
All of us, who care about children, public education and humanity, must speak up and speak boldly. We must all be as brave as Mr. Farley and Dr. Ravitch in standing up to those who wish to destroy the foundation of our democracy. It is the responsibility of each of us to be the change we want to see in the world.
Everyone is jumping ship. I could have written this article. It’s why I left education after 23 years.
Everyone is jumping ship. I could have written this article. It’s the same reason I left education after 23 years.
So many good teachers leaving the profession! It’s very, very sad. The reform juggernaut continues to roll over kids and teachers.
Wanna destroy the love of learning? Take this new CCSS ELA test planned for juniors here in NY this June.
Click to access 2013.05.09_-_ela_regents_nti_document_final.pdf