Students for Education Reform thinks teachers should promptly agree to be evaluated by student test scores. They like standardized tests and want them to be the determinant of their teachers’ careers. They even held a demonstration at New York City’s City Hall to say so.
But not so fast.
Bruce Baker has studied and critiqued the New York State educator evaluation plan. He says it is so inaccurate that it should be rejected. He calls SFER “Sockpuppets for Education Reform,” because they know nothing about what they are advocating.
EduShyster thinks she understands their fervor for the cause.
EduShyster reviewed the 990 tax form for Education Reform Now.
ERN is the nonprofit arm of DFER, or Democrats for Education Reform.
DFER is the organization created by Wall Street hedge fund managers to lobby for charter schools and other market-based reforms.
If you read the ERN tax form, you will find a section X, headed “Other Liabilities.” It says, “Due to Student First and SFER $1,643,926.”
SFER, no surprise, is the spawn of DFER.
DFER wants teachers to be evaluated by the test scores of students.
And so does SFER. they demand more standardized testing, more teaching to the test, a narrower curriculum in which reading and math matter most. If they don’t do their homework, if they don’t study, they want their teacher to be held accountable.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I was thinking, Diane, that hedge-funders are not SO different than acaemic institutions–who seek high profile teachers who bring moey with them, ditto for departments that have wealthy bckers, et al.
Unfair> Yes, a bit.
The standardized test mania drives me nuts. Not that the reformers care but the people with the lowest stake in the tests is the students themselves. In Michigan, students get no reward or consequence for MME scores. I teach juniors and I can tell you that they don’t care a bit about any test except the ACT.
I’ve seen some of our best students choose to bubble in patterns or all “C’s” so they can nap for a few minutes. We cannot compel them to try especially when they know that it is not relevant to them.
Yet schools, administrators and teachers are judged by this.
After a student noted that she didn’t care whether MME declared her proficient because it meant nothing to her, I asked my students after last year’s tests the following question: “At what point did you realize that the MME had no effect on your transcript, college admission or graduation status?” They replied: Middle school.
$1,643,926!
You know for that amount, I could do the following: hire 5-6 teachers, charter a few Amtrak private cars, pay for 3 daily meals and snacks, buy some souvenirs and textbooks to supplement their visits, and teach them the four core subjects while traveling through the United States for a half dozen months; possibly more. You know what an experience that would be for several dozen city kids?
That would be a much better use of their money.
And it would leave a lasting impression on those who were a part of the trip. That’s what those kids should be advocating for. BTW- does anyone know how many (SFER’s) were actually residents of NYC or NY? (Protesting tourists or guests- now that’s funny!)
Anytime the DFER is involved it is time to fight. Gloria Romero is the head of the DFER in California, You can watch a press conference of the DFER at George1la and watch them cringe when we ask real questions. The DFER as is the DNC right wing anti labor anti student and teacher so called democratic institutions. I say that because these groups are out of the “Real Democratic” belief and help for the common person instead of corporations. Most so called democrats, if you look at their voted on policy, are really republicans. We need to call our own people what they are. And that is way right of the real center. Today we are a fascist nation as the defination of fascism is corporations running the government and that is what we have today at every level.
Using children? Isn’t that a tactic Hitler applied?
How desperate … How sad… How unethical!
Well, the Sfers are college students so I don’t know that they are necessarily “children” so really shouldn’t be compared to the Hitler tactic.
Misled young adults who haven’t quite developed the necessary critical thinking skills to understand they are being used. Sounds like a teaching moment.
There is an internet tradition, derived from Godwin’s law, that once one side in an internet debate compares the other side to Hitler or the Nazis (this is referred to as a Reductio ad Hitlerum), the thread is finished and it is generally held that the side that first uses this approach automatically loses the debate.
Great exposure of this so-called “grassroots” student organization.
I guess the green grass for this grassroots organization is made up of DFER greenbacks.
Teachers have used children to demonstrate and protest on their behalf. And some teachers have talked children into skipping school and protest against the War on Terror, and etc.
Now that students have chosen to support teacher evaluations, apparently on their own, you mock them and turn on them?
True colors are shown. True motives are shown.