AFT reacts to the findings of the PDK-Gallup poll:
WASHINGTON—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten on the PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools:
“In no uncertain terms, the public is saying end the fixation on and misuse of testing. Americans are fed up with the overemphasis and high-stakes consequences of standardized tests. They’ve seen those consequences and effects first hand and now oppose the Common Core State Standards and using test scores in teacher evaluations. What’s infuriating is that parents and teachers have repeatedly raised the red flag over high-stakes testing, but policymakers routinely dismissed them.
“The public has not walked away from higher standards or accountability. They, like teachers and their union, have a far better grasp than the policy makers, who reduced everything to a test score. The public and teachers believe measures, such as student engagement, examples of student work, teacher grades, observations by teachers and graduation rates, are much better indicators of student, school and teacher progress.
“Parents and the public get what’s needed for kids to have a great education: less testing, more funding, strong curriculum, good teaching in small class sizes. And, as an ongoing indictment of the inequity and austerity measures schools have faced, for the 10th year in a row, the public continues to believe that there is insufficient financial support for schools. The staying power of this finding shows that Americans understand the need to invest in schools and the resources and supports that kids need to succeed.
“This poll and many others show that the public wants great public schools. If policymakers believe all kids should have equal opportunity for a quality public education, they should start listening to the public and give our schools and kids what they need for a bright future.”
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Correct me if I’m wrong, but after reading this, I think Weingarten avoided “what she thinks and what she’s doing” as the president of AFT to end the totalitarian, fascist nightmare of reform.
Weingarten must clearly come out and say what she agrees and disagrees with and what she’s going to do about it, and then she has to be transparent with everything she does after that to show she walks her talk.
Randi is right on target. The reason public school teachers are the best hope is that they are the best innovators. Innovation meaning finding the best way for children to learn.
These teachers understand that kids are not commodities, the Stepford kids, and do not learn in the same standardized way and at the same standardized rate. That is not the nature of human beings. Kids get their teeth at different times, start walking at different times, learn colors at different times. What kind of nut case would give a single standardized approach to education.
Public Schools are the hope for the future. If the Collins amendment (go to http://www.wholechildreform.com to read) survives with the ESEA, the opportunity to innovate assessment and therefore the curriculum exists. And once innovation becomes the issue, public schools will once again thrive.
Randi Weingarten is being disingenuous once again. She is trying to get on the bandwagon she has spent years trying to wreck. http://goo.gl/FA0YOR
Weingarten articulated the obvious. It required no special insights and was certainly not a particularly sharp statement. Any person following this blog could have produced a better statement.
Weingarten remains one of the principle problems facing working teachers today. She is not only unaware of the embarrassment she should exist with daily, but almost all of the calls and decisions she makes expose working teachers more fully to the wrath and destruction of reformers. In fact, ousting Weingarten should be the primary focus of organized teachers (along with awful Weingarten-esque
State leaders like McGee, Mulgrew, etc) in our fight against the reform movement.
Weingarten is and has been against us for some time. That she somehow was able to read the obvious in these polls and make a workman-like pass at crafting a statement stating obvious things is meaningless at best in our fight. Her name, along with NYSUT leaderships’ names should rank with the pantheon of all the privatizing reformers of the past decade or more.
Weingarten is our enemy.
Amen NYSTEACHER
Does anybody not know how this has played out, or will play out?
PUBLIC: “After a careful study and witnessing what corporate school reform is doing to our schools, we’re against all things corporate school reform. Please stop.”
CORPORATE SCHOOL REFORMERS: “No. We’re now going to force all this on you and on your schools, and shove it down your throats, and down your kids’ throats whether you want it or not.. and we’ve got the unlimited money and bought-and-paid-for politicians to do it.”
PUBLIC: “But wait. Aren’t you corporate reformers supposed to be all about ‘choice,’ and parents having a choice? Don’t we have a choice?”
CORPORATE SCHOOL REFORMERS: “No, actually, you don’t.”
PUBLIC: “But you said we did.”
CORPORATE SCHOOL REFORMERS: “We lied.”
Games are played by corporate reformers and corporations own the politicians and the media. To rally the parents to eventually tip the scale, we must present a vision for the future. A viable alternative to the testing fiasco.
Without this, we will be seen as simply politicians. That’s what politicians do, say no to an issue and not present any alternative
6 years ago I stated on my website that if public schools don’t come up with an alternative to the test, public schools would and should perish. Low and behold, to this date there is no support for a viable alternative and what has happened to public schools is obvious.
If we keep doing the same thing we will keep getting the same result. Insanity!
“. . . that if public schools don’t come up with an alternative to the test, public schools would and should perish.”
How the hell did this country survive before NCLB and its testing madness?
Didn’t schools have assessments of students prior to the enlightenment that isn’t NCLB testing?
Weren’t schools and districts evaluated by state departments of education and or the NCATE process? Wasn’t that sufficient for the public to know what was occurring in the public schools?
Oh, yeah, those focused on input (how and where public dollars were spent) and process (what was occurring in the classroom) and not on output (test scores). And everyone knows that the bottom line requires focusing on output, I mean, isn’t that what it’s all about?
Focusing on output has been the main factor in the deterioration of the teaching and learning process. And why might that be? Because education is not a business and to use valid and legitimate business practices for a completely different realm-education is a false, error filled monstrosity resulting in educational malpractices that cause harm to students.
The reality no they did not thrive http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2015/08/public-education-change-or-perish.html
Cap,
The schools that I have been involved in indeed were thriving with those “antiquated” evaluation systems. It is with the advent of “output” accountability that schools are being forced to change to accommodate those “output” models and not accommodate the students in the input and process accountability mode.
And you like to point out that “talking” will not change things. However, most ordinary folks that I talk with know hardly anything about what is going on (you and I have more personal stakes in this and therefore have spent much time and energy in understanding the many problems) and need first to be informed of what is going on. That is the “talking” part, and, yes, it is “doing something”. The more folks that know about these issues the more that we, the public school supporters, will have on our side which can make a huge difference to the politicians who have a tendency to listen to those who pay to play until enough voters let them know that their pay to play masters can’t defeat the numbers of parents and allies at the polls. The the politicians start to understand that their ass is on the line, and that’s the only thing that matters, other than having their pockets lined.
Compare the grad rates of the schools with their freshmen enrollments in any urban system and reality will hit.
Also you made your premise on that I point out that talking doesn’t matter? I don’t remember saying that because talking does matter So you are arguing with yourself. I also reject the idea that other educators don’t understand issues. They are capable of deep thinking when they are not drawn into a war that doesn’t help anyone. The conversation, and I use the term loosely, between deformers and those I agree with is especially damaging to kids.
It would be refreshing to go to a conference and hear a viable alternative to the testing fiasco. But that would take critical thinking and the only winners would be the kids.
“But that would take critical thinking and the only winners would be the kids.”
We could only hope so, and/or work to make that happen. But without identifying the fundamental conceptual errors/concerns/problems (which take need that critical thinking) the solutions will be lacking and more likely than not harmful to students.
And yes, you are right I don’t have much confidence and have seen little evidence that the majority of teachers and especially administrators (they don’t get to those positions through critical thinking but through ass kissing, crude, yes but that comes from my two decades of experience of the day in and day out workings of public schools) know how to critically examine what they do on a day to day basis. It’s not a matter of them “being drawn into a war” but of them not being able to even begin to want to see and challenge the status quo. Yes, I am cynical! In Bierce’s sense: “Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are not as they ought to be.”
Randi Weingarten loves paid op-eds, letters to the NYT, press releases . . . which all have in common her tepid, cliché-filled style. I get the feeling that she measures her success in a manner similar to reformster administrators. They go around checking off inane lists, such as how many teachers have “I can” statements posted on their wall, and they consider this evidence of something meaningful. I get the feeling that Weingarten measures her effectiveness in bylines.
Randi uses critical thinking, not simple rhetoric so her replies might not satisfy those who have simple answers for complex questions. I would add different, whole child assessment to her comments but other than that she is on target. But as long as we play political games with who I like or don’t like, we will stand with the deformers.
Until we are unified without personal agendas, and we seek a vision for the future, we will prevail
See schoolgal’s comment below. Randi is full of it. Her writing is, as noted, tepid and cliche-filled, but her actions show her true character. Randi wouldn’t recognize critical thinking if it bit her in the….
And yet she negotiated contract after contract with higher VAM percentages. She has backed every Reform and only out from the darkness to give a statement like this to make the rank and file think she supports them. It’s called Blowing Smoke.
And she has acquired the Duncan adjective “great” as if we need “hall of fame” thinking and stack ratings to address the concept of excellence in education with no sense of urgency about equity.
“. . . with no sense of urgency about equity.”
As usual Laura, spot on. Expediency trumps justice. Or one might say that one face of justice trumps the other-justice as law or justice as fairness and equity. And in this case I’d say you and I are not on Socrates side of the debate, unfortunately damn near everyone else is on his side.
Justice as legal fairness and equity being the highest goal.
Indeed, we humans fall far short.
But we must fight towards that ideal for if not we might as well act in the only fashion for survival where might makes right and that wouldn’t be humane would it. It appears we have chosen that path-I sure hope not.
It is refreshing to know that someone is working for kids and making a difference from within the system, trying to change it one step at a time. While the deformers have dug in their heals, and those I agree with have dug in their heals still standing in their corners screaming and yelling, schools are still closing at a rapid rate. To do the same thing and expect different results is truly insane.
Opt out has developed an opening to offer a viable alternative to the testing fiasco, but what do I hear on this blog? Nothing, tea party style silence. We may not continue the “Trump” style mentality simply saying what’s wrong but giving no alternative. And no, going back to the good old days is not the solution. http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2015/08/public-education-change-or-perish.html
Randi works within the system to make changes and supports those who do. Her comment in my book states “Moving us away from a test based system…. dares us to imagine schools that will propel students into lifelong learners…….”
When I mention the Collins amendment to her, she knows what I am talking about. An amendment that allows us to use innovative assessment in lieu of the test. Isn’t that what we want? But in this blog, absolutely no one talks about it. Is it more important to win the battle than it is to take kids away from the testing fiasco.
Of course if we transitioned away from the test, what would there be to scream at.
“If we transitioned away from the test, what would there be to scream at?”
>Vouchers
>Corporate Charter Schools
>Bill Gates
>Arne Duncan
>Eli Broad
>The Walton family
>The Koch brothers
>A bunch of Hedge Fund managers who are stealing public pensions and taking over public schools while hiding their fraud as they skim billions to fatten their fortunes
>Michelle Rhee
>Cuomo
>Scott Walker
>the bully governor of New Jersey
This is the short list.
I’ll scream with you on those
Reblogged this on Lifelong Quest.