No Child Left Behind became law in January 2002. Twelve years later, it is a discredited law that remains on the books only because Congress can’t agree doesn’t know what to do next. They are trapped in the quagmire of a failed accountability system and they don’t know how to get out.
But Race to the Top compounded the basic error of NCLB–relying on testing and accountability to “reform” schools–and it added a new ingredient: a frontal attack on teachers as the primary cause of low test scores. Its effort to quantify the value of teachers by the test scores of their students has not only made testing the sine qua non of daily education but has destroyed the joy of learning and harmed the teaching profession. Race to the Top made teaching to the test a necessity. Every time you hear either President Obama or Secretary Duncan say that teachers should not teach to the test, but they should be rewarded for higher scores and fired for lower scores, remember that this is what hypocrisy sounds like.
To see the harm of Race to the Top through the eyes of disillusioned and disheartened teachers, read this comment:
I met a friend for lunch today. She was a colleague with whom I taught, up until last year, before I moved to another school within our district (an urban Title I District which serves a demographic of primarily Hispanic, English Language Learners). As we talked, we both discussed our disenchantment with a broken system and mused about moving to a mythical place where we would be afforded more creative freedom to teach in way that was deeply impactful and meaningful. We talked about how our anger had turned to apathy, and how we feared getting lost in the oblivion of bitterness and burn out. We talked about how the instruction of our students had been reduced to district directives putting our students at the mercy of mind-numbing computer tutorials and scripted skinnarian intervention programs. But mostly, we talked about how, through all of this, we have been slowly and systematically robbed of the relationship we have with our students.
Let me explain how I came to know this colleague. She is a middle school social studies teacher and, hands-down, one of the finest teachers with whom I have ever had the pleasure of working. I have drawn from her strength, as I witnessed her question the “status quo”, stand up against arbitrary policy, and show a depth of understanding for each and every student that crosses the threshold of her classroom. I was the special education teacher who supported the identified students on her team, for which she was the team leader. Never, in my twenty-four years of teaching, had I heard so many students express such a love of social studies, or a specific teacher, for that matter. When I would ask why, the response was generally the same. “I don’t know, she just makes it fun.” Or, “It’s just really calm in her classroom and you want to learn.” Or, “She just cares about us.” This came from Middle School Special Education students, many of whom were reading between a first and third grade reading level, but nonetheless, experienced success in her classroom.
So, why is this story significant? This year our district has taken Special Education and intervention to new heights. We have been directed to pull out our lowest twenty-five percent during science, social studies, and elective classes when providing support. Consequently, many students get one day per week in the classes that many typically thrive in and enjoy the most. We are over-dosing, yet essentially depleting, our most vulnerable, struggling students. When I questioned my administrator on this directive last year before leaving, her response was something like, “Well, who really needs social studies in life? Who needs to know where this country is on a map? It’s just not that important.” After attempting to recover from her flippant, uninformed comments, my response to her was, “But it’s the only class many students like and she teaches reading and writing through her content. Plus she is masterful at meeting the needs of every level of student.” She hemmed and hawed and finally conceded that that was just the way it was.
Now that I think about it, I believe the students just like my friend and feel safe in her classroom, regardless of what an excellent teacher she is. They are learning despite themselves. This, my friends, is not quantifiable. This is about relationship. Yet, given the new teacher evaluation mandates, she will be measured and evaluated on the progress of students who spend eighty percent of their week in front of a computer or being read scripted questions, verbatim, which must be answered on the cue of a bell or clicker; pre-packaged programs which, by their very nature, prevent inquiry, creative thinking, and most importantly, a relationship with a trusted teacher.
“Where do we go from here?” we asked each other. I don’t know. I do know that we have both found ourselves mourning a profound loss. Then my friend shared her own personal insight. “It’s like when you are in a bad relationship”, she said. “You start to compromise who you are. First, you let go of this. Then you let go of another thing. Pretty soon you realize that you just can’t go on because you aren’t being true to yourself anymore.” I am glad I met my friend for lunch, because she continues to give me the courage to find my own voice. She once said to me that people who have a gift for teaching urban middle school students have a moral obligation to continue the work. Now I see her wavering, not because she does not love her students, but because she cannot be true to the relationship, and ultimately herself. I am terrified that this will be yet another a piece of the carnage left behind in this battle–just one more casualty soon forgotten in the sweeping, dispassionate corporate take over of our American Public Education System. But even more, I am soul sick for the students who may never have the opportunity to cross the threshold of her classroom.
The State always uses futuristic utopias to take control of kids and families. Like the futuristic “Stepford” model here, where all needs are provided, this video shows everyone staring into a digital device, which seem to know how children learn and controls our lives. No signs of cooperative learning, children and teachers as automatons and zombies on their “field trip” into data land.
Caution: this video had graphic zombie imagery.
I believe the name of the school is Carter or Charter HS?
The video from Joseph above, produced for inBloom, illustrates what ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, is promoting as the Student Achievement Backpack Act . I have edited and added some caps to some of the legalese in the model legislation ALEC offered to states on January 15, 2014.
The State Department of Education shall ensure that every student has a complete learning profile, from kindergarten through grade 12, in an electronic format known as a STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT BACKPACK with access to this information available under secure conditions to the teacher or other person who is authorized to access the data through the STUDENT RECORD STORE—a cloud-based, secure, confidential and accessible data storage system accessible via a web browser to the student’s parent or guardian; and by an authorized LEA (Local Education Agency) user upon parental authorization and as required the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1232g (weakened under Arne Duncan).
The “ robust, comprehensive” data system will collect longitudinal student transcript data identifying: each student; the student’s parent or guardian; each LEA that provides instruction to the student; each COURSE PROVIDER that is currently providing instruction to the student and has been authorized by the student’s parent or guardian; each EDUCATION SERVICE PROVIDER that is currently providing content or educational services to the student AND has been authorized by the student’s parent or guardian. (Much hedge room in the PROVIDER language for sub-contractors to access the information).
The model legislation offers a template/timeline for implementation. The final stage is linking student data to: sections of classes the student attended, individual student attendance records for these; the name of the teacher for classes or courses the student takes; the qualifications for each of these teachers, including years of experience, degree, license, and endorsement; results of formative, interim, and summative computer adaptive assessments; detailed data demonstrating a student’s mastery of core standards and objectives AS MEASURED BY COMPUTER ADAPTIVE ASSESSMENTS; a student’s writing sample written for an ONLINE WRITING ASSESSMENT; a school’s grade {or equivalent, based on the state’s accountability system}; results of benchmark assessments of reading; a student’s reading level at the end of grade 3; any teacher comments, recommendations, or notes applicable to an individual student, “as determined useful for inclusion;” and eligibility for federal free or reduced-price lunch program.
The model legislation says that non-academic information shall be excluded from the STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT BACKPACK. (Even so, it also leaves ambiguity about the use of other records already on file in the district/LEA). The model legislation only calls for parents to be made aware of this information—specifically—students’ and/or their families’ religion or political party affiliation or voting history; psychometric data; biometric information; juvenile delinquency records; criminal records; medical, psychological, or dental information; social security numbers; employment history; and income level.
thank you Laura for completing the puzzle.
What are we doing to the next generation of students? Have we thought about the impact all this data collection will (or might have) on them?
There is one well known billionaire who has had significant input into the development of the Common Core, SmarterBalanced Testing, Pearson products (texts), PowerSchool and Teacher Evaluation. This individual will have the ability to link together all aspects of education. Does anyone see a problem with that? Not for you and I, but for our youth? Didn’t Hitler feel that if you could control the youth…
Where’s the research that indicates that we are taking steps to further education? I’m not real comfortable that we (who are supposedly wise) are allowing/shaping a future that is in our children’s best interest. And yet we plow onward…
I find this video very disturbing. Not one child holding a book or manipulative. Just looking at devices and there is no person to person interaction! How can you be ready for the real world and not have face to face communications? Data data data! Kids should not be numbers!
I like this from John Taylor Gatto:
Marshall McLuhan once called on us to notice that all machines are merely extensions of the human nervous system, artifices which improve on natural apparatus, each a utopianization of some physical function. Once you understand the trick, utopian prophecy isn’t so impressive. Equally important, says McLuhan, the use of machinery causes its natural flesh and blood counterpart to atrophy, hence the lifeless quality of the utopias. Machines dehumanize, according to McLuhan, wherever they are used and however sensible their use appears. In a correctly conceived demonology, the Devil would be perceived as a machine, I think. Yet the powerful, pervasive influence of utopian reform thinking on the design of modern states has brought utopian mechanization of all human functions into the councils of statecraft and into the curriculum of state schooling.
I’m a young guy, and I remember my teachers doing all of the above with an excel spread sheet. Some people bought a tablet to look cool…You can’t do anything on a tablet but surf the internet (inefficiently) and use social media–a more efficient way to pass notes…Yeah, a multiple choice quiz is graded quicker, big deal…I’d rather have an aid or after school tutoring…These canned products come at a premium, above individual market price…
I could not agree more! Students should not be looked at as number but as learners in the classroom and citizens of the community. Students need to have interaction with other students, and teachers. You cannot have a classroom without interaction!
Of course, the reason the neediest kids are getting yanked from science and social studies is because the testing is in language arts and math. No doubt these kids will get extra test-prep practice in these two areas, so when their scores are disaggregated, they rise. Under NCLB and RTTT, that’s all that matters.
This was one of the most moving accounts of what teaching is and what it has become, especially for our most vulnerable populations. I hope more people, besides educators, read this to help their understanding of what is truly happening. Because what I find most of all is people who don’t work in schools, don’t understand.
Educators need to reach out to parent groups to educate them. They are rising up.
I received my stacked ranking scores last week. They are dismal. I work with high risk student populations. Some are on the edge. Everything I do in life I put in maximum effort. In education, that translates to knowing students, a deep understanding of my content, and a goal the each person I teach is reached. I’ve never been judged “ineffective” in any professional endeavor. Students appreciate my effort and honest concern. The reformers, politicians, and public do not. Our governor vowed to “break the backs” of teachers in his election. I am disgusted, angry, and saddened by what education has become in our state. As a teacher, I am now blacklisted and soon to be publicly humiliated by people I don’t even know. We have sunk so low.
Fight back
Not at all meaning to be flippant, NY teacher, but what can you do to fight back?
Everyday. But the public is brainwashed and confused. “Teachers are the problem” “Schools are failing” “We need standards and tests” “Schools are too expensive” Until the slumbering giant that is the elecorate cares about the schools, nothing will happen. In our state, the people running the schools in state govt are ideologically against them. One education commitee leader said we need to sell all the schools to corporations. We have a deep pockets group called the Buckeye Institute actively lobbying to eliminate teacher retirement programs and slash wages. We’ve turned so hard right that it will take decades to repair the mess.
” . . .but what can you do to fight back?”
Don’t you think that having to ask this question is rather telling.
If they stacked ranked doctors unfairly based on the populations they serve and went so far as to publicly humiliate the doctors who work with high risk patients, do you really think that the doctors would ask, “what can I do to fight back?”
Stand up for what you know is right. Use all resources. You have a union. Take out a full page ad. Get a lawyer. A class action suit.
Write letters to the editor. Call a local reporter. Call Bill Moyers. God dammit don’t just sit there cowering, complacent, and compliant. I know its easy for me to say. But I too am evaluated on subjects that I don’t teach, and if anyone tried to publicly humiliate me over that I would GO DOWN SWUNGING.
NY teacher,
We have no teachers’ union in North Carolina. It would not be legal.
Think about it MathVale. if the oncologist was about to lose her medical license because she lost more patients than the plastic surgeon there would be holy hell to pay for whoever came up with such an unfair and irrationally punitive system.
What would not be legal? Fighting back with the legal system?
Where is the wealthy billionaire business person willing to right this wrong?
I can offer some insight into the current corporate management because I have worked with these nefarious systems. When it comes down to it, the managers don’t really care what the validity of their measurements are, as long as numbers go up. Most metrics, even in business are flawed, counter productive, long-term profit losers.
The corporate office is far removed from the actual workings of the company and the people who make it work.
Metric data gives the illusion of objectivity because you have a number arrived at by a mathematical formula. Much like Freidman and the libertarian’s Laffer Curve, it’s a system that does not reflect reality but is used to prove a political point (in the case of managers, their jobs) or the creation of an ideological mind (e.g. Friedman).
What I am trying to say is, the metric’s validity is inconsequential. As they are debunked, there will be minute tweakings at most, kind of like King’s changes to ‘appease’ the sell-out union.
NY teacher
what are you doing to fight back?
the union is weak and does nothing.
we will follow what you have done.
I agree to some extent but I worked many years in the corporate world. Yes, there is a reason the Dilbert cartoons are so funny. Because they are true. But at least there was some correlation between performance and reward. Not much, but some. Frankly, there is much the corporate world could learn from school management. Contrary to the rhetoric, schools do a good job with higher manager:subordinate ratios, lower per employee spending, and more unfunded government mandates than any private sector professional company. And schools cannot pick their “customers” or segment “markets”.
One big difference in school management is, in schools, the interest of the “executives” is to destroy the “business”, particularly in the ideologically driven red states. I don’t know too many execs who would survive for long by making a company less successful or by adopting policies to purposely cause the firm to go under.
I am trying hard to think of an industry or profession where employee’s personal performance appraisals are publicly displayed. And then just the final, single rating without rationale and no opportunity for an employee response. The sole purpose is to blacklist and shame teachers in the tradition of Joe McCarthy or Stalin.
Ohio Math Teacher,
Join our state and regional groups, Ohio Friends of Public Education. Google “Central Ohio Friends of Public Education” – Facebook page
We have had 2 community forums, each drew about 120 people. Our 2nd one was last week, “Ohio’s Charter Schools: Where are our Tax Dollars Going?” On our panel was The Senate Minority Leader Joe Schiavoni. This tues. we meet with chair of Ohio Senate Ed Committee, sen. Lehner . We are looking to organize more panels to educate and inform the community, join us!
Our governor would like to “take the public out of public education.” Next year we start our sgp raitngs based on a test that has not been determined yet, likely the smarter balanced test. I will be ready to start living on a small homestead on land my son bought. We have truly sunk low, I am there with you MathVale.
As a long time history teacher I am aghast at the who needs social studies and geography comment. Our world is so global today and will continue to be even more so in the future. That comment displays a serious ignorance of the realities of the 21st century.
if these kids with special education needs are being pulled from ‘main stream’ without amending their IEPs, they are being denied FAPE/LRE, by exclusion from their Least Restrictive Education setting. The school is in non compliance with federal and state laws. Has anyone thought about filing a non compliance complaint with the state agency? Perhaps, just maybe, these kids can be protected. On every occasion an IEP is not implemented, parents or other concerned adults MUST challenge school practice
There are a few extremists who say that the youngest children can remember their past lives. The ancient Greeks believed that this memory was lost at death. I have spoken to 2nd and 3rd graders who trusted me, and were able to talk freely about what was happening in their classroom and the books that they were reading and their “feelings”. They are a treasure, if you have their confidence, and quite intelligent.
Teachers are not prepared for this communication and see students test scores as an obstacle to their survival.
Click to access Bauer-PathmanANGxp.pdf
Oh for the love of G-d! And when the district can’t afford annual updates and hardware revisions, then what? And when the network is down…then what?…When the teacher ipad can’t sync with the students’ ….then what? What happens when the audio is down or is locked and incapable of adjustment….What happens when the audio from a computer program across the room creates interference with the ipad mic…? Ever log on and all of yesterday’s data is gone? (oh my you haven’t lived !!) And when the ipads need repair and the tech will be there next month, then what? The everyday realities of modern technology…costs a leg and yet can’t replace the human brain.. Whenever a system relies on logged data, I keep my own manual log as back up…I have to rely on it often. Teachers as perpetual data loggers…seriously? I stopped writing technology into my lessons …frankly, it is just too undependable.
Diane
Have you considered creating a legal defense fund through NPE that many could contribute to? A defense fund that will be used to start a class action suit against the use of VAM against teachers. The fact the requirement for VAM in teacher evaluations is a de-facto federal policy. No state had ever included such an invalid and destructive evaluative tool until Arne Duncan made it a requirement. There has to be a number of legal issues in violation. I’ll be the first donate.
Isn’t that what unions are for?
Mathvale, I’m feeling down myself, to tell the truth. I don’t know what to tell you.
It seems like there’s been a lot of progress in the past five years. Diane Ravitch has gone all militant, and we’ve broken their narrative. Everybody everywhere is calling it corporate reform, and there are opt-out movements and editorials that call it like it is. There’s Bill Moyers, even if Krugman is still being a putz.
But then, in real terms like people’s actual lives, there’s been no rest or shelter. At work, there are skirmishes and little battlefield victories for a day, like we might manage to drag a kid to safety before the boot comes down on her. The amount of actual personal hurt for teachers and kids, homeless waifs and working families … it has trended up, and only up.
So, I’m sitting here thinking to myself, “Oh, damn, I forgot to buy coffee again.”
At least there are no trolls out right now to dance on our misery. Love you all, hang on.
chemtchr
Its always darkest before the dawn.
One of the most outrageous aspects of the whole evaluation scam is that teachers are required to follow the prescribed scripts, employing whatever the district’s technology mandates require, and they may not deviate to follow student interest or even go beyond the dictated depth. And then the powers-that-be have the gall to rank teachers based on students’ performance after following the mandates. If you’re going to blame teachers for students results, at least let the teachers decide how to teach to the tests. But then we wouldn’t have conformity across the country.
It all reminds me of a scene in A Wrinkle in Time, the classic children’s book by Madeline L’Engle which is likely circumscribed under the Common Core. There was a neighborhood of identical houses, each with a child standing in the drive out front bouncing a ball in unison in a steady beat. There was one little boy whose bounces were off. He was clearly not with the program. Later in the book, the boy was in a re-education center, learning how to bounce a ball properly. Whenever I hear of the charter schools and their robotic procedures, I think of that scene. I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes a banned book because it teaches children to think, and that seems to be anathema to the educationists.
That’s pretty good.
One I thought of recently was that this entire reform movement reminds me of the $1 bet between Randolph and Mortimer Duke in the Eddie Murphy movie “Trading Places.”
Who is destroying public education?
Just look at the Camp Philos guest list:
(NOTE: This id NOT a piece from The Onion)
Thanks For Your Interest in Attending and Supporting Camp Philos.
Registration is Now Open. Click the Register button at the top of the page to be a part of this inaugural event.
Please join:
The Honorable Andrew Cuomo
Honorary Chairman
Joe Williams
Executive Director, Education Reform Now
And Special Guests
Senator Mary Landrieu
Mayor Michael Hancock
Mayor Kevin Johnson
Russlynn Ali
M. Night Shyamalan
Adirondack Mountains
Lake Placid, NY
Whiteface Lodge
May 4 – 6, 2014
As in the summer of 1858 when the poets and scholars Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Russell Lowes, with Horatio Woodman retreated to the mountains for respite in kindred company:
Education Reform Now will convene Camp Philos in Lake Placid, NY.
Embark on three spring days of fun, fellowship and strategy with the nation’s thought leaders on education reform. The exquisite and secluded Whiteface Lodge, which ranks among North America’s top luxury destinations, is nestled in the majestic woods of our country’s largest wilderness park.
Reform
Relax
Retreat
For questions or additional information, please contact events@edreformnow.org
Sounds like a fantastic protest spot. Lake Placid is easy to get to, only about 2.5 hours north of Albany. Would be nice if a couple hundred (thousand?) teachers un-relaxed them. Not surprising that this “relaxing, reformy retreat” is being held Sunday to Tuesday planned to limit teacer “participation”. We sure would get some media attention!
Interesting that they would have the gall to equate their punitive reform movement with the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
>Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society. Transcendentalists believe that society and its institutions—particularly organized religion and political parties—ultimately corrupt the purity of the individual. They have faith that people are at their best when truly “self-reliant” and independent. It is only from such real individuals that true community could be formed.<
I read the original note — about the school administrator who took the child from his or her social studies classroom to do special education makeup work. How did this school activity by teachers and their supervisors all of a sudden become the fault of the State or the rich guy or the lack of a union or some other excuse? It seems to me (obviously not a teacher) that the teaching system does not teach many children to read and then complains about the way the school system tries to make up for that early lack of teaching.
There was very little outside supervision of teaching and schools before people realized that many children were not learning. One cannot solve the problem (children, in the early school years) not learning to read and do math) if one does not know where the problem is and the dimensions of the problem.
The NCLB law correctly (in my view) identified the problem as minority (blacks and Hispanics) and ED children were not learning as much as the NED, white and Asian children.
In your response, kindly advise why — if you cannot or are not teaching the ED children why make them come to your (public) school. In my view, If you insist they go to a public school you have the obligation to teach them. If you do not want to accept that obligation then you should encourage them to a school that will teach them.
Yes thauck–nc, you are definitely NOT a teacher. Thank goodness.
The school administration can do anything it wants, and they know it.
They do not support classroom practice. Supporting the classroom teacher is not what they want to do… if the unhappy teacher leaves in a few years before vesting and benefits kicks in, then the budget is kept low. Teachers lose their chosen career, and the children are the big losers.
The real professional teachers were sent out the door by the thousands over 2 decades, and that is why the children are not learning. Pedagogy is a profession, and the way the brain acquires skills and knowledge is what gifted, educated professional know.
Once the schools failed, charters came in and said: “hey, we can to it better.”
That is not true, but the ad campaign and outright lies they sell because there is big money behind them, confuses people.
The voice of the teacher is no where to be found in the public media.
The sad truth is that there has not been a shred of accountability for the hundred thousand veteran teachers whose tenure was broken because the accountability of administrators to the law of DUE PROCESS was removed from the school workplace.
This is fact documented with the evidence of two decades as the schools were emptied of the professionals who would never replace tried and true BEST PRACTICE with test-prep and magic elixirs. Principals and administrators are aware that there is NO ACCOUNTABILITY for their behavior, and like all failed people who get to run the show with no penalties for malfeasance, or outright lawlessness, they do whatever they please.
Charter schools have no accountability for what they mandate.
Do not expect real learning to take place in any but a few showcase charter schools.
They are in it for the profit, not the education of ALL our children
Reblogged this on Middletown Voice.
Would that the public schools were safe for great teaching. I don’t say “again” because in my limited experience from years and years ago, I never experienced a “great” teacher like this one in any of the grades during which I went to public school, except perhaps for 8th grade typing, and there it was not a matter of relationship; it was just that she was totally organized and new exactly what she was doing.
Great teaching had to wait until private school, and even there it was sparse. Even in college there were only a very, very few “real” teachers, perhaps two in college and two in all of graduate school. And even they were quite careful never to raise the truely larger philosophical issues which could have functioned as a deep motivator.
Perhaps the expectation of “great” teaching is somewhat misplaced among human beings. Are students ever ready for Socrates?