The Worcester Telegram commended parents who choose to opt out of state testing and reminded parents that they–not the federal government, not the GatesFoundation–are the ultimate controllers of their children’s education. The paper laments the fact that Massachusetts dropped its successful state standards to chase federal dollars.
After reviewing the genesis of Common Core,the newspaper concluded:
“Thus, the purity of the motives at play, and the content of Common Core and PARCC, are important issues, but not the first ones that must be addressed.
“That first issue is the unprecedented and illegal wresting of the core of public education from the hands of local players. Parents, teachers, and local school boards alike must first understand that what is happening is authorized by no law, and has no basis in the Constitution.
“Just as importantly, they must understand that they have the power to wrest it back. We urge them to start by rejecting Common Core and PARCC. Massachusetts should return to its own proud and successful traditions — the civil disobedience embodied by Henry David Thoreau, and the independence in public education pioneered by Horace Mann. In so doing, we can set an example for every state.”
The School Committee of Worcester gave parents the right to opt out of PARCC pilot testing, but Mayor Joe Petty is pressuring the School Committee to reverse its vote. Politicians who deny parents their right to say “no” should be voted out of office. If they don’t listen to parents, who will? I mean YOU, Mayor Petty.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
My favorite quote: “Massachusetts should return to its own proud and successful traditions — the civil disobedience embodied by Henry David Thoreau, and the independence in public education pioneered by Horace Mann.”
Love it!
for Twitter: Just copy and paste then ReTweet often. The short link goes directly to this post and was created at Bitly to free up room for more info/impact in the Tweet
https://bitly.com/shorten/
Little Robots
The face of so-called EdReform
Mayor Joe Petty of Worcester MA
Wants to take control of kids fr parents
http://bit.ly/1p0tmI6
“Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers tests ”
The language they use is hilarious. I hadn’t seen the actual branding they’re using before.
I read the Broad Foundation Twitter feed and they’re pushing the idea that this ALSO prepares students for “citizenship” because some of the reading requirements are fundamental US history docs and speeches. It made me laugh because it’s so obviously responsive to the charge that this is so heavily commercial and monetized. “It’s CIVICS! Really! We SWEAR!”
I will make a 5 dollar bet that this branding morphs into Three C’s: college, career and citizenship. Marketers love a series of the same sound in a slogan. I’m surprised they haven’t rebranded it already.
Don’t give them any ideas? :o)
Everyone should read the Broad Foundation twitter feed.
If corporations and foundations are running our kid’s schools, we should know something about these folks.
I believe they are pushing ed tech product today. Yesterday they were selling Uncommon Schools. It’s a product per day.
They just discovered that some schools encourage kids to go to college. They think this is an exciting innovation,limited to charter schools.
I think my ordinary, middle class public school has been holding rah rah college admissions sessions since around 1977.
It’s a gamechanger!
I started teaching in 1975-76 and I think I asked annually who planned to go to college. After 99 to 100% raised their hands, I told them what it would take. For instance, paying attention in class, asking questions, doing assignments, and reading for fun at least 30 minutes or more a day after school.
Then later when I started teaching at the high school in 1989, I added this and reminded my students about after school tutoring being offered in the library ever day.
In fact, I put together overheads that demonstrated the average earnings in America at each level of education from drop outs, to high school grads to two year, four year and graduate college degrees from US Census facts.
How many paid attention and followed that advice? A few.
Diane, yesterday, Senior Associate Commisioner of Education for Massachusetts Bob Bickerton did a session on PARCC for the Mass Association of School Committees in Northampton; I liveblogged the session (I am a member of the Worcester School Committee).
When asked about opt out, he had this to say about Worcester: “Worcester voted to opt out, we believe that they had no authority to vote to opt out, but we’re not going to do anything about it.”
Tracy, that is great news! Everyone should opt out. PARCC is the worse of the two federally-sponsored tests. Wait until you see the Lexile review that I will be posting in a few days. PARCC is designed to fail kids.
PARCC (which my state is using) is significantly more difficult (i.e. at a level most of our honors-level students are capable…but way beyond our typical student) than the SBAC. Wondering what is behind that.
Wondering how you know that PARCC tests are significantly more difficult than SBAC? Is it just from sample items on their websites?
Without set cut scores it is difficult to compare. No?
Both PARCC and SB agreed to align cut scores with NAEP proficient, which is far too high.
These are TRAPS not TESTS designed to TRICK, CONFUSE, TIRE OUT, and WEAR DOWN young children into FAILING.
Parents of MA, do not let the villains of corporate reform use these bogus tests scores to undermine your public schools, fire your teachers, or humiliate your children.
OPT OUT of PARCC TESTSING
OPT BACK IN to your former, world class standards
Let us hope that this refreshing attitude spreads like wildfire throughout MA. Usually the major media fall in line with corporate education drivel. The Worcester Telegram is looking very good. I am feeling helpless as to what to do with my own 2 kids. They are good students, but they (and me) are getting fed up with the common core junk that they are bringing home lately.
The CC reform movement is re-defining the school experience for children, in a vey negative way. It is narrowing and limiting their view of the world and permanently damaging their perspective on learning while de-emphasizing the importance of content knowledge. As a direct result of the imposition of this punitive approach to education, students will end up knowing less and disliking school more than ever.
Heck of a job Arne!
In Oklahoma there are dire consequences to opting out of testing. In 3rd grade if the student doesn’t pass the reading test, he will be retained unless he meets 6 legal exceptions. 8th graders who don’t pass the reading test aren’t allowed to get their driver’s license until they are 18. For many in rural Oklahoma, that is economic and/or social death. In order to get a diploma from a public school in Oklahoma, a student must pass 4 of the 7 end of instruction tests (EOIs) given between 9th through 12th grade.
Also, in an A through F system, public schools are graded and financially affected by students’ score, and starting this year teachers’ evaluations will be 35% based on student test scores (VAM).
So you see, unless parents want to hurt the very people and institutions they are trying to protect, they cannot choose that great American tradition of civil disobedience, and opt out.
They can hire a good lawyer. Civil legal action can replace civil disobedience.
Actually, the testing in from NCLB, not Common Core, and I believe they are statutory. We can fight it, but the students still might not get to 4th grade, or get their driver’s licence at 16 (no exceptions), or get their high school diplomas. NO, I take that back, there is an alternative for the diplomas, I believe they can do a portfolio for each test subject (an extensive research paper, and I mean extensive with many parts) But I think it is only for special ed students. They can’t do them without a lot of help. I know I’m on the committee for the US History one
Also Just this week the OK House voted to repeal the Common Core for Math and English, it is in the Senate’s hands now. We will see.
But VAM still is being tested this year. I am ashamed to say I was on the working committee for that. Well, not really, because they didn’t listen to us anyway, and we were just “tokens”. I just felt dirty afterwards, and kinda of stupid. I wrote a poem about it, started a blog. and felt better for a while; then got involved in all of this. Now I am driving all of my colleagues and family crazy.
People need to believe that they have choices otherwise nothing changes. Somebody always needs to be the first to speak up against the Oligarchs. Your administrators feel like you and parents do about CCSS, but they are afraid like everyone else. I always believe that parents have more power in this case, but they have to believe it. Once someone takes a stand in your county, it becomes a chain reaction. Then follow NY teacher’s advise.
Worcester’s Superintendent Dr. Melinda Boone is a Broad Foundation graduate. The Worcester teachers union took a vote of “No Confidence” on her. She also recently got a performance review that literally made her eyes fill up with tears because she was ranked as needing improvement in numerous areas: http://www.masslive.com/news/worcester/index.ssf/2014/02/worcester_school_committee_giv.html
Google Melinda Boone’s name and see that she had issues in her previous job down south…..
Mayor Petty wants the revote because “the state provides so much financial support to the schools” — providing the opt out protocol to parents, students, administrators and teachers would upset the state: http://worcestermag.com/2014/03/15/mayor-joe-petty-looks-overturn-school-committee-vote-test/21785
The School Committee meeting is on Thursday, March 20 at 7 p.m. (eastern). People need to email and call the members before Thursday and share their thoughts about making the opt out procedure known publicly. The members will try to say that the protocol already exists and that Dr. Boone previously said that students can refuse the test without punishment. But the parents, etc. need to be told this in writing, through a clear letter that makes the opt out protocol known.
Here is the link to the School Committee’s contact info: http://school-committee.worcesterschools.org/modules/groups/group_pages.phtml?gid=1001374&nid=82657&sessionid=88f930406fb724fdb50baf8b4d4eb38c
More information here:
http://www.citizensforpublicschools.org/what-we-know-opting-out-of-parcc-pilot-tests/
I saw this comment on another post on dianeravitch.com and think the writer
is absolutely getting to “the heart of darkness” of Common Core. It’s long, but worth the read Massachusetts. Here is the insightful comment from mimi@zombienation.com:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Bill Gates’ reference to “electric plugs” in his keynote speech to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards brings to mind the Milgram obedience experiment that has become the most famous study in psychology’s history. There is a relationship. Today, the “obedience” from Common Core supporters and promoters seems to come from people who perceive Bill Gates as the “voice of authority” on anything, especially Education. Like the Milgram experiment, the “voice of authority” can lead people to follow orders and perform in ways that goes against their own nature, even to commit cruel acts on others without conscience awareness of guilt or shame.
Bill Gates may be one of the best authorities on technology, but he is not an authority on child development, education, or psychology. In fact, my observation as an autism specialist is that Bill Gates has all the classic characteristics of “Asperger” (High Functioning Autism). This is not to diminish the value of people with autistic qualities, including myself, but it can present some deficits in specific areas of affective functioning, and it does cause certain limitations. It may be his Asperger deficit that does not allow him to recognize the psychological distress to children caused by the CCE (Common Core Environment). It may also be this same deficit that does not allow him to recognize his own limitations.
For young children, the CCE is an environment of psychological abuse:
There are two conditions that determine psychological abuse: Entrapment & Control.
Both of those conditions are in place in the CCE. Children are forced to attend school, therefore they are trapped with no escape. While in that environment, they are being over controlled with a rigid schedule, a domineering teacher using uninspiring, mind numbing, scripted test drill that does not connect with them or their world. They have little opportunity for creative self directed learning, cooperative learning, or imaginative self expression. This chronic stress and feelings of “never fully measuring up” in the CCE is high risk for psychological damage. It is a dismal “work” environment that is joy-less, comfort-less and heart-less. Common Core has created the same grim social denial that abuses children in the same way they were abused in New England factories of the 1800’s prior to child labor laws.
Sitting in a desk for seven hours without healthy physical activity and without ongoing social emotional interactions with peers causes a child to feel isolated and “punished”. The CCE is a “bullying” environment that is causing children to have chronic feelings of “victimization” that are unrecognized and repressed. Young children in this environment are learning to repress their own needs and emotions and perform according to what their teacher/parent wants. A child’s greatest fear is disappointing parents or teachers.
This “self denial” and conditioning of children to repress their emotions is the beginning of the “faux front” that will develop into a personality disorder. The child will build an internal reservoir of repressed feelings of victimization – shame, anger, guilt, helplessness, while outwardly performing well intellectually for the teachers and parents. A child in the CCE will become desensitized and emotionally flat. After some time, it can be observed that they have lost their spirit when they begin to function more robotic. At that point, they have lost imagination, spontaneity, and humor. Their behavior will become more withdrawn or irritable, bored, sad, cry easily, sleep or eating disorders, or impulsive aggression. At the time these symptoms can be recognized, the damage is already done. They are “burned out” and depressed. Without intervention, this chronic traumatic stress will manifest in young adulthood as self destructive or risk taking behaviors that will negatively impact their future and well being. Their intellect may be high from the CCE, but their social/emotional development will suffer severely.
Intellectual development (cognitive) and Emotional development (affective) do not run on the same track. In fact, they develop in different stages at different times, and not always at the same pace with each child. It is “imagination” that uses elements of each, cognitive and affective, when making decisions and perceiving one’s world. It is the emotional development that maintains a person’s “morality”, in addition to their ability for empathy or guilt, and other feelings/emotions. When imagination (spirit) goes away, there can be decisions made with intellect, but without connections to affect: guilt or shame.
When young children are “captive” in an authoritarian school environment that focuses exclusively on “performance” (reward/punishment), their intellectual development will advance, but their social/emotional development will not. Without a “safe” environment that supports healthy social and emotional development from positive behavior modeling, and when forced to function in a “threatening” demanding environment, children’s social/emotional development will not progress but will be stunted. If the insecurity from a “threatening” environment becomes chronic, a child’s emotional development will start to regress (going back to a safer place in early childhood). This delayed emotional development and/or emotional regression will become “hard wired” into a young child’s personality. This invalidating environment in public schools has intensified to what we have today as the most punitive environment in history, and we see increasing evidence in the general population of adults who cannot think for themselves, are slow to mature, and often behave like “children”.
The invalidating school environment has increasingly contributed to the problem that has become a psychological plague in American society: “covert” Narcissistic Personality Disorder. We have many highly functioning intellectual professionals (the best and the brightest) but with immature social/emotional development, which includes a deficit of morals. (think Enron, Wall Street, Politicians, Billionaires, etc). They usually perform well in their work, but their personal lives often reflect their emotional deficits via relationships of codependency. Their codependency is often “covert”, since it mostly impacts their personal relationships with people or “things”, and usually reflects an addiction to either substances (alcohol, drugs, food, sex, gambling, etc), or to work, or to their mates or romantic interests.
The punitive environment in elementary schools is causing many children to have symptoms of High Functioning Autism. This has been a mystery. Mental health professionals all over the country are focusing on the soaring increase in autism, and the co-occurring disorders of anxiety and depression. The early signs of regression and emotional dysregulation that were previously believed to be High Functioning Autism, are now being recognized by more mental health professionals as signs of “traumatic stress”. Both trauma and High Functioning Autism have similar symptoms, primarily regression, dissociation, and constriction. CCE has created an environment of traumatic stress for many children, especially the sensitive children who are often gifted and prone to high spatial intelligence. Their symptoms often include ADHD in addition to the other signs of anxiety and depression. These children, who are most often the creators, inventors, and artists, are the most damaged in the CCE. Like the reference to Einstein’s quote: These children are “fish” who are being measured on how well they can climb a tree.
It is my observation as an educator and mental health professional, that the current school CCE is causing psychological damage to young children on a grande scale. It is causing permanent psychological damage in the form of personality disorders, especially Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder. It is also my professional observation that those who designed the curriculum do not have the knowledge of child development or empathy to recognize the psychological damage from chronic emotional distress, which is very gradual and works on the brain like erosion works on soil.
Bill Gates and the other school reform billionaires may be the “best and the brightest” in designing technology and recognizing what constitutes intellectual development, but they are causing harm to the nation’s children by not listening to mental health experts
and child development specialists. It may be their own “narcissistic” personality traits, in combination with those of the general population, that bestowed this “voice of authority”
on them, but they are wrong about what children need. We cannot afford to allow wealth and power to buy “false authority” for determining what children need.
The nation’s most recognized researcher on Borderline Personality Disorder resides in Seattle, and works at the University of Washington. Bill Gates would be wise to consult with Dr Linehan and UW about the impact of CCE on children . This important research from UW, which shows that an “invalidating” environment in childhood leads to Borderline Personality in adulthood, cannot be ignored in light of the statistics on children’s mental health disorders resulting from the CCE. The CCE may enhance some test scores through motivation by fear and intimidation, but our nation will pay a heavy price that Bill Gates nor his cadre of billionaires cannot afford. There is no amount of money that can fix permanent psychological damage to children.
As Frederick Douglass said, “It is easier to care for a child than to fix a broken man.”
If Bill Gates and the other Common Core “voices of authority” continue to ignore children’s greatest social and emotional needs, and fail to recognize the psychological damage from CCE, they (we) are in effect practicing what the Milgram experiment proved.
I have always believed that the Aspergers part of this equation is HUGE.
I love my high functioning students who trend on that part of the spectrum (and my relatives who do so as well), but letting them determine the scope and sequence for public schools is extremely unsettling. Blinded by his money, people have not toned down Gates’ theories to a more balanced equation.
It reminds me of Patton Oswalt’s piece on letting those with low ambition or acumen determine what we do at school. Somewhere there is a balance, or rather an array. . .a spectrum (imagine that).
It’s no different than super thin supermodels setting the norm for how a female looks at herself in the mirror. At some point you recognize that her purpose is to model clothes on the runway and inspire the fashion industry, but that if you want to speak to the average female without causing her a major identity crisis and warped sense of self, you put healthier looking women on the scene at some point. Same thing.
I use United Opt Out , http://unitedoptout.com , to print letters for parents to opt
their children out of testing. I hand them out after school when parents pick up their
children and also mail them to all the others. Many have been opting out, and
many, simply grateful for this information they weren’t even aware of.
It’s one of the things you can do as a teacher to fight the system.
The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings.
-Albert Schweitzer
Worcester, Massachusetts… home of Clark University…one of the colleges that does not require their applicants to forward SAT scores…Bravo Worcester:)
The parents, students, and teachers of Worcester need the alums, professors, and students to stand up to the Mayor! Show support by contacting the Worcester School Committee members before Thursday, and attend the School Committee meeting on Thursday, March 20 at 7 p.m. at Worcester City Hall to support those fighting the Mayor’s outrageous bullying revote tactic.
Note I mean “alums, professors and students” of CLARK. Thanks!
Outstanding!!!
Here’s the federal law that Duncan and the Obama administration have violated:
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Subpart 2, section 9527(c)(1):
(1) IN GENERAL- Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal law, no State shall be required to have academic content or student academic achievement standards approved or certified by the Federal Government, in order to receive assistance under this Act.
Bob, laws are for small minded, paranoid employees who have no sense of trust (and thereby show that they cannot be trusted). We are a family here in America. If the father of the family — in this case, Gates and his noble compatriots — wish to tear down and old failing structure so that it may be replaced with an innovative new design that will better serve our children, who is anyone to stand in their way? Indeed, those who would do so are akin to terrorists (if not terrorists in fact), and should be treated as such,
Bravo to the Worcester Telegram for advocating a parental opt-out to thwart what seems to federal blackmail! Unfortunately the position gets Common Core and standardized testing entangled. I am not sure how children can be opted out of the former since it is a comprehensive framework for teaching and learning. However,.The testing part I get–and opting out seems.doable.
Why don’t those parents care about their own children? Why are they racist?
The State should be given power to remove their poor abused children from their homes and place them with caretakers who will give them a proper education in the goodness of the Common Core and the benevolent altruism of the philanthropists who funded it.
I think people are making entirely too big a deal about the testing. We’ve had state testing in place for years, so everybody, parents included, should be used to the process. I’m hoping people will stop causing such a problem and look at the tests for what they are–snapshots of what our students are capable of.
The pilot tests are research. It’s illegal to force anyone into a research study. That is a big deal.
I understand taht these are pilot tests, but I think it’s an exaggeration to say people are being forced into a research study. If people would think about the pilots as evaluations of the tests, instead of evaluations of our students, this wouldn’t be such a big deal.
Massachusetts’ DESE has stated that the PARCC Pilot Test is “mandatory.” You think that isn’t forcing students to take it?
You sound like a troll from DESE with your attempt to dismiss what is happening…
There’s no need to start name calling. It’s clear that you’re passionate about this issue, but I’m just trying to present the other side. I understand that your state has made the pilot testing mandatory and i would agree that the mandate is forcing students to take the test. However, I don’t see anything wrong with this because the pilot tests are intended to gather research about the test itself, not the students taking it.
If you think there’s nothing wrong with the pilot test, then opt your children in. But other parents should not have their children forced into mandatory research study — and that’s exactly what the pilot test is. Massachusetts is researching whether it wants to replace the MCAS with PARCC through this pilot test.
This is nothing more than the watering down of the original intent of NO CHild Left Behind.
Democrats and the teachers unions have all about destroying NCLB ever since it was first announced because it put teachers’ jobs at risk.
Once again students get the short end of the stick .
Mr Petty (mayor of Worcester) has been tirelessly supportive of the Democratic municipal unions. He has placed his puppet in the city manager slot in Worcester and never ceases to pay back those Democratic uinions members for their endless money supply to his campaign. Tit for tat, I suppose.
This is the state of MA going around in circles, forever spiraling downward.