This teacher wrote a math problem into a Tweet. He got a negative response from someone he did not know. The next day, he was pulled out of his class and suspended on suspicion that he had leaked a Common Core test question on Twitter.
This is a frightening story. His reputation was nearly destroyed by suspicion and allegation.
This is his story:
I need to set the record straight
I teach my students that their reputation is the most important asset they own. Your reputation is determined by your actions, your deeds, and also how you are viewed by others. Therefore, it is vital that you understand that your reputation ultimately defines you. Success is not judged by how much you make, but rather, real success is judged by your character and how others view your actions and deeds. I believe this with my heart and soul.
Unfortunately, my character was questioned by an unproven allegation. Ultimately it was determined I did no wrong and the allegation was unfounded. I write this posting today as a record of what has transpired over the last two days. I also owe my students and their parents an accurate representation as to what occurred so that they may be fully informed.
My views on the Common Core and high stakes testing, are well documented on this blog as well as on other web sites including Facebook and Twitter. I assumed that one day, I would be challenged for my beliefs, and I have even commented that teachers live in fear of retribution for their beliefs. Well this week it was my turn to be challenged. Not only was my professional judgement challenged, my First Amendment Rights were challenged.
It all began Wednesday evening with the following “tweets”;
My initial tweet was an editorial comment based on a Common Core standard (which includes a similar example in the standard), and included a generic example that can be found in many practice workbooks. As you can see Allison Sitts, aka, IthacaGorges took exception to my message and accused me of posting an actual test question. I followed up with a response stating that it was not an actual test question. At this point I thought little of Allison, I didn’t remember conversing with her before and just assumed the conversation was over. Well it wasn’t!
The next morning ( Thursday) I administered part 2 of the New York State Math Common Core Math assessments to my class. Immediately following this exam, ( It was literally minutes after collecting the test books.) My principal was standing at my classroom doorway , with a very distraught and serious look on her face, and says, “I need you to come outside now.”
I say, “OK, I’ll be right there.”
She then says, ” I need you right now. “
My first thoughts are about the well being of my elderly parents, my wife or my children.. so I leave the room and find my Superintendent there, who immediately hands me a letter, and says. “you must come with me now.” Without having time to read the letter, I grab a pen, and a notebook and then he, and my principal escorted me downstairs, into the administrative wing and ultimately into his office. On the way down he informs me that my union representative and union president are on the way and that they will join us. Once in the office, as we waited for my representative to arrive, I read the letter and it said that I was going to be interviewed regarding concerns about my workplace conduct. So there I sat.. wondering what is this about?
Once my representatives arrived, I was initially questioned whether or not I posted test questions on the internet, on my blog , or on Twitter. I replied I did not and then I was shown the tweets that are at the center of this controversy. I explained that it was a generic example with an editorial comment, and that I am entitled to post my opinion. He then informed me that Alllison Sitts , who I just then found out is a math specialist for Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga- Boces, sent an e-mail to my principal accusing me of posting test questions and suggested my district conduct an investigation. ( Now to be fair, as of today I have not read that e-mail because it has not been provided to me yet.)
Based on this, my superintendent informed me that he would be contacting the Nassau County BOCES Superintendent and the New York State Education Department, regarding my ” posting of a state test question.” He then informed me that I would be placed on administrative leave and would not be allowed back into my classroom. As you can well imagine, a heated discussion followed which I will not disclose at this time. Throughout the entire discussion I maintained my position that under the First Amendment I am entitled to post my opinions, and that I did not post any test questions.
I immediately expressed a concern for my students. I told him my students saw me removed from my classroom, and I know that they will be upset.I was basically told, they don’t know why you left and they’ll get over it. I also expressed a concern that my students are facing a 6th day of extensive testing the next day and that it was unfair that they will be forced to face it without their teacher ‘s encouraging words. As you can imagine, that appeal fell on deaf ears.
I asked why didn’t they wait until my prep period to summon me thereby not having the children observe me being escorted out. I also questioned, why I was being removed from the classroom, and why couldn’t the investigation continue while I was teaching. Was I a threat to the school or my students???
I was told that upon the advice of the district’s counsel I was being placed on administrative leave.
I was offered the choice of remaining in an office to work on lesson plans or I can work from home. At this point, after consulting with my representatives, and a NYSUT ( our union) attorney I decided to work from home. I then had to wait until my students lunch period, so that I may be escorted by my principal to my room, to gather my personal belongings.
I then left the building and went home.
On Friday, I received a hand delivered letter at home, with a directive to pick one of three thematic units to develop. As I sat home wondering when I would be allowed to return to my class ( I never had any doubt that I wouldn’t) I set to work on my project.. Upon the advise of my counsel. I ‘laid low’ , I didn’t tweet, post on my blog, or answer parent’s emails that were questioning what happened because they heard I was escorted out. I put my energies into the task at hand, developing a Social Studies- LA unit. As you may have guessed I decided to develop a unit based on the Bill of Rights, specifically the First Amendment.I knew I would be vindicated so I did what I was instructed to do.
As I was completing my task, just before 3 PM I received a phone call from the District Superintendent. He informed me that he filed a report with the New York State Education Department and that they have cleared me. I was now welcome to go back to my school on Monday.
Last night as I was answering parent e-mails that I put aside during this ordeal, I discovered that parents thought I was arrested! You see my students went home upset, and one thing led to another.
Hopefully my student’s parents will find their way to this blog, the rumors will end, and my reputation will be made whole. I look forward to teaching my students the importance of the First Amendment and how you should never allow anyone to take your rights away.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you for helping me to set the record straight.
Your reputation is clean as a whistle here!
Thank you.
rratto: thank you for setting a good example under trying circumstances.
🙂
And for providing a striking instance of how due process and union representation are even more crucial in the twenty first century.
The difference between you and the “education reformers” who sit in their air-conditioned offices with their thin resumés and order folks like you on the front lines to work harder with less and try to instill fear in you when you don’t meet their quotas & VAManiac expectations & act on your best instincts as a concerned citizen?
“It doesn’t take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.” [Norman Schwarzkopz]
Thanks for standing tall on behalf of all of us who care about a “better education for all.”
Krazy props to you.
🙂
Let us know if you need anything rratto.
Mr. Ratto, thanks for your wise and professional behavior. I agree you should sue and pledge $200 to your legal fund if you do so. Bosses of all kinds in all places try to intimidate us one-by-one so we shut up and follow the rules. The uproar below in comments is exactly what is needed to fight back against any efforts to silence teachers. When teachers fight back together, we get results, like in Chicago and Seattle. Find allies, make plans, work together, stand up in large groups.
Thanks for sharing your story. I find the security drama surrounding testing to be pathetically looney. In your case, not so much. Glad things worked out for you.
The only thing about your First Amendment is that it’s a guarantee that the government will not drive up in a black car and send you to Siberia for your beliefs – it does not protect you from all consequences of your actions, and it does not mean that your employer can’t fire you for expressing them.
Personally, I think they’re putting the test above everything and have thoroughly blown this out of proportion without verifying anything. This is crazy – that math problem could have been something random anyone would come up with on the fly.
That Allison person has a lot to answer for.
I strongly believe that the real reason they don’t want us to talk about the test is so that the test can never be questioned. So sorry for your ordeal. You did the right thing throughout.
Big Brother is paranoid and watching!
This is correct.
John Dewey has left the classroom and the Gestapo has arrived. May God help us save education.
Amen!
one has to wonder if the intent was to intimidate. Surely the complainant should have had the responsibility of checking the truth of her assertion. If you suffered any damages you might have grounds for a lawsuit.
I strongly suggest your union needs to clarify with the school system how accusations are to be handled. In treating you as guilty until proven innocent, have not they opened the door to false accusations all over the place?
Although the complainant has responsibility here, how about the other officials involved in the investigation? Who are they working for? Who benefits from this system of intimidation and bullying?
When we answer this question, we get to the root of the dysfunction.
Perhaps it’s time we apply the spirit of New York’s Dignity for All Students Act to protecting school employees from intimidation.
Of course, intimidation was used. The weaklings need others to do their muggings. Sic.
Sue IthacaGorges for pain and suffering. File charges for libel. These people who use the internet to abuse others need to be brought to justice.
Yes, sue. Need help with attorney’s fees? I’m sure you can find a plethora of donors to help you.
Wow. I am so sorry this happened to you and I cannot imagine the anger and frustration I would have felt over this. Good luck and I believe Kenneth might be right. They cannot just do this without reprecussions or it opens too many doors.
I agree with Hannah. What a display of paranoia on numerous levels! Couldn’t these folks (Allison or any administrator) just look up the practice question? After all, you did note in your second tweet that your model was the practice question.
This situation illustrates the dangerous narrowing of curriculum if practice and test questions are so close that some “Allison” trolling Twitter (why was she there?) can turn an innocent teacher’s world on its head with a single sentence. She ought to be held accountable for her rash accusation.
Shows how afraid they are.
M. Schneider: just the lack of professional care and disregard of the effects of her wild accusations on a teacher, students and parents is abominable. Literally a few minutes of investigation would have ended this disgraceful affair before it even began. Shameful.
😦
And people wonder why I call them edubullies and accountabully underlings.
Once again, KrazyMathLady reaffirms my belief that there are hardworking ethical numbers/stats people in the world—they just don’t get the same airtime as their peers who have gone over to the Dark Side [hint: STAR WARS].
🙂
I have frequently referred to those in administration as having gone over to the Dark Side. When I hear about a teacher going from the class room to admin I tell him/her with a chuckle “I’m sorry to see you’ve given into the Dark Side of the force.”
We live in a police state. A few hundred REALLY RICH people are pulling the repressive chain. They actually DO THINK THEY ARE BETTER THAN THE WORKERS. It’s an entitled perspective. Guess King George still reigns only via other puppets.
This has a lot of the earmarks of the sort of dirty tricks that were prevalent from certain members of groups like Mathematically Correct and HOLD. The fact that she went behind your back to try to destroy you is particularly repugnant. And that she did so after you made clear what the source of your problem was makes her a would-be assassin. Personally, I’m hoping to hear that she’s paid a severe price for her actions in this.
What your district did is another matter. It was wrong, and it, too, may be actionable. But I have an easier time following the knee-jerk behavior of bureaucrats acting with their hive minds to cover themselves at all costs, given the current climate on testing and various cheating scandals, than I do understanding Allison Sitts. She had every reason to proceed with caution and chose quite the opposite course. Very reprehensible.
so let’s see what a quick google of Allison Sitts brings up:
http://tst-math.wikispaces.com/
https://twitter.com/IthacaGorges
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ny-supreme-court-appellate-division/1527042.html
http://new-york-employees.findthedata.org/l/1309695/Allison-L-Sitts
http://prezi.com/qdhvcthgkap6/copy-of-nys-math-scoring-changes-for-april-2013/
now be careful – there is an Allison Sitts listed as Ypsilanti MI – I Am only looking for things that tie back to the one who is clearly connected with the particularly issue
somehow from a quick perusal of a few of the links I would say she seems very invested in the heavy reliance upon testing, which might explain her reaction?
Why in the world would the case law hit come up on the first Google search page? Surely she has more professional credentials that can bury such personal information. (If anything, it might explain her hostility.)
Yes, I did all that detective work much earlier today and saw the stuff on her custody hearing, etc. That’s ultimately how I ran into a photo of her posing with Bill McCallum, the head of the group that wrote the Common Core math stuff. I’m trying not to jump to too many conclusions, and for all I know she’s a heck of a math educator.
Glad she’s not based in Ypsi. It’s bad enough that’s we’re in the same field without having her residing in the next town.
You can easily find her Twitter account on a search. By reading the description of herself you learn she is pro-testing, pro-RTTT, and pro-Common Core. She made some Tweets about the only thing she would opt her kids out of would be test prep. Does she not understand that all she supports is what’s causing test prep??
Her Tweets regarding this incident leaves out rrato’s response telling her it was not a test question, but a test prep question. But that didn’t stop her from taking the action she did and causing havoc to these students. He was not there to facilitate the 3rd day of the math test, and I am sure his students were on edge. So if the scores are not high on that portion, then the blame should go to Allison and not the teacher.
Her twitter account is no longer.
Sounds about like what I would expect from a backstabbing little coward.
I will have a contrary opinion here vis a vis the custody posting. I understand that this women set off an investigation but perhaps that is all she had wanted- someone else to investigate and find out that there was no real disclosure and that would be the end of it. The firestorm that happened after was the actions of the district and their absolute disregard for their own employee and his/their students well being. ( But, I will claim that hoping a district has the best interests of students in this age of edeform test mania is not thinking clearly).
Her custody battle is not educationally relevant and it seems to be muckracking perhaps. I cringe at the thought that at what was an inquiry attempt has now got her private family issues splattered across the internet for her own children to read. I am not defending the actions of the district and I applaud whole heartedly the brilliant response the indicted without due cause teacher took. I hate the test mania, I hate the district actions but I also hate using smear tactic to intimidate and until we get that woman’s side of the issue, she is being tarred and feathered by the egregious actions of other people. This might have been an innocently intended retweet for all we know. But, I would hate to think I was doing the right thing by calling into question an action that has been stated to be against policy only to have my personal life flaunted in the internet because the higher ups had their heads and their hearts up their posteriors.
Just my two cents and perhaps I will get villiified for the perspective.
Miss Allison started the brouhaha. Didn’t she? It’s unfortunate that her messy private life is out for others to see, but maybe she should have thought about that when she made a false accusation, that might have ruined rratto’s career and livelihood. When they say testing is high stakes, rratto’s experience proves it.
Exhausted by the stress,
Agree wholeheartedly with your post.
Duane
Just to clarify….I only posted what Allison herself has made public. I did not nor will I delve into her personal life. I just find it telling that her agenda is made clear….RTTT and Common Core.
Whatever else went down between these 2 on Twitter, we will never know. But I doubt it warranted her actions which effected his students as well as himself and his family. I am not sure if the principal followed protocol when all he had to do was see a copy of the test prep question and report back to his superintendent that nothing improper happened. Usually investigations that are not criminal in nature takes place at the school level.
What this does teach is is never take for granted our due process rights. Even that’s something Allison would agree with (I hope.)
This is a really scary story. I’m scared that we will all be in this boat at one point or another. No one will help us. The union is useless in my area; and I’m in a right to work (right to be fired) state, so there are no protections. God help us all.
So you tried to communicate a practice question similar to what was being taught and learned?
How evil. Pure unadulterated evil.
What if your students had actually gotten a hold of the question, tried it out, and gained a deeper understanding of how to work the problem? That in turn might have facilitated them doing better on the test and wire their brains for the better.
How could you have done such a horrible, selfish thing?
Practicing an exercise to improve one’s cognition and do better on a test?
This is heinous.
Sarcasm aside, it is astonishing yet not surprising how our system is willing to witch hunt educators without tangible evidence of wrongdoing, but it’s the same system of authority that has proof beyond a reasonable doubt of the wrongdoings of Wall Street and still refuses to investigate or prosecute those suits.
Ditto for the authorities looking into Ms. Fang Face herself, Michelle Rhee.
Those public school teachers . . . . Beware and be warned . . . .
It’s comments like this that make me wish Diane could add a LIKE button. So I will just tell you, I LOVE your comment.
School Gal,
Thank you for your kind words. Your insights are always a “like”.
My comment was a no brainer in this instance because all one has to do is look at the hypocrisies in our system.
You know, I looked at Barbara Bush (the granddaughter) and her world health organization, and in her promo, she states that it’s critical that the United States make healthcare accessible to people across the globe because we are a powerful nation and still have a lot of influence. I agree with here that healthcare should be universally accessible.
Well, someone should point out to little Miss Sunshine that her father once said unabashedly that those who can’t afford health insurance can simply go to a local emergency room and they can NOT be turned away. He and others in D.C. successfully did everything they could to prevent a single payer system from forming.
I guess this is the new American “exceptionalism”.
We have about 50 million people in our own borders without any health insurance (does not matter if you’re poor, middle class, upper middle class, etc) and about another 30 million who have it, but are underinsured.
Obamacare is a joke . . . . an ersatz system of universal care.
My point is all about hypocrisy. And don’t just look for it in education.
Although a sweeping tale of it goes straight to Joel Klein, who was allowed to go to work for Rupert Murdoch’s education division right after his chancellorship in NY City. Yet we teachers can be stripped of our licenses if we so much as privately tutor a child who attends public school and who we don’t even service in our own or another school in which we work (at the parent’s request!).
Hypocrisy is probably among our biggest domestic and exported products. If I could tap into that market, I’d be a billionaire . . .
“If I could tap into that market, I’d be a billionaire . . .”
Can I invest in your start up!
You are a very lucky one to the norm. You were not out of the classroom very long and did not incur high legal costs and loss of pay and benefits as is the norm. The day the special education Federal Case Chanda Smith was decided was the first day I started to work on teachers, and later parents, students and staff, being falsely charged and/or illegally terminated or disciplined. Commonly they drive them crazy and no one believes them. In 1997, after a political war, we had LAUSD audited by the California State Auditor for teachers being falsely accused of child abuse for whistle blowing and principals stealing student impress funds. This audit is on line at the California State Auditors website and it is Oct. 1997, 96121. It is worse now today than in 1995. This is happening nationally. The stories which are documented are horrendous. Administrators regularly break the child abuse laws by not reporting within the legal time limits and interfering with investigations which are criminal offenses. If this has happened to you contact lenny@perdaily.com.
This is exactly why 99% of teachers across this country will not open their mouths. Look what happens if they do. And they WILL hear about this story. It will not empower, it will only instill more fear.
The vast majority of teachers do not use social media or connect with anyone outside their own schools about their teaching jobs. Think how many times this kind of thing happens, and nobody hears a word.
When teacher voices are raised in individual public protest, careers are ended, truths are twisted, and lives are destroyed, without cause. Daily.
Thanks, @rratto, for having the you know whats.
With this blog getting 4 million views per day, I really think that is starting to change . . . .
I am not a fan of social media. i prefer seeing and talking to people in real life.
But I acknoweldge and extoll this medium’s virtues and power. It’s here to stay, and teachers’ voices are far less silent and growing ever louder and more numerous thanks to social media.
And thanks to Diane for tirelessly maintaining this blog.
umm this blog does not get 4 million views a day. It has gotten 4 million since it was set up
4 million per day, 4 million per year? What’s an error factor of 365 more or less between friends?
Oops, TeacherKen. Thank you for the correction. . ..
Of course, this fight is FAR from over. We have millions of miles to go, but the Ravitch blog is a seminal start . . . .
Here is Ms. Sitt’s Twitter feed–at least what can be found with Google:
https://mobile.twitter.com/IthacaGorges
Apparently, not only does she blow false whistles, but she’s egotistical and obnoxious:
“@rratto I appreciate your feedback, but I certainly don’t feel I need your endorsement.”
What nerve.
According to her Twitter banner profile, she’s a(n) “RTTT Network Team specialist”–whatever that’s supposed to mean…:
“RTTT Network Team and math specialist, focused on moving mathematics education into the 21st century. Mother of two amazing boys!”
The Internet can make or break people for what it reveals about them and their private lives.
Look’s like she’s deleted her account.
What a frightening experience. Teachers do need to be careful when they use social media, and many are not careful. What you did was so innocent, but whatever we do on social media is just that – social and public to be interpreted by whomever, and however they want. Yet the advantages of using social media are many, such as you are using it now to inform teachers and the public of what happened to you. I’m so sorry you had to go through that humiliation.
Well, I guess Allison’s issue is that she is involved with Math, not Reading.
Allison’ email is here, though rratto may prefer no one contact her:
http://www.cnyteacherpdnetwork.org/eventdetail.aspx?eventID=301
We see teachers fighting for their jobs in Mexico and it looks like they may be winning this battle. Hawaii teachers started a movement that finally got them a real living wage. Chicago stood up against Emanuel.
When teachers here in the US finally come together and organize a day of protest across each and every state, city and community? I think people will listen and I think parents will support us as well. This emphasis on testing is getting out of hand. We tried with a rally in Washington, DC. and people did show up, but not enough to make the front pages. But for those who can’t make such trips, a national day of protest might be easier to arrange.
AMEN to orgainzed, mobilized, consensus reality! It will be THE only way to change things.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if the national day of protest was a day when every teacher taught what s/he, in best professional judgment, decided that students needed, disregarded published curriculum, pacing guides, top-down mandates, and the rest? I admit that one day of freedom can’t make up for 179 days of mandates, but it would make a statement. “Mom, Dad! Guess what we did in school today!”
You would think that Allison would recognize a practice question because she is a Math “specialist”.
It’s a witch hunt.
This smacks of McCarthyism and the Red Scare. We must stand united.
McCarthyism Lives. Stay resolute and firm from these Corporate-Fascists.
“Allison will also be spending some time working with Model Schools and integrating educational technology.”
http://tst-math.wikispaces.com/
I’m not so sure I would consider Allison to be an expert on a “Model School”. Does that line above mean “integrating education technology” to ensure that our best teachers aren’t trying to help their students on Twitter? Good grief – it was a simple arithmetic math question – that’s all – as any math teacher or “specialist” would know!
rratto, I so admire how you handled this ridiculous situation. The “accusers” owe you and your students an apology, at the very least.
This story is scary for several reasons. The superintendent and the legal department was willing to credit an unknown person from outside the district just because she works for a fancy organization before they would accept the word of their teacher. A quiet investigation and an email to the testing company could have solved this situation without all the drama. I wonder if this woman is trying to send a message – “Don’t mess with Common Core” – the not-so-subtle message is “if you want to keep your job”. I sometimes feel like I am on a speeding train headed for a disastrous collision. The passengers are shouting stop! slow down! watch out! but the engineers keep going faster and faster.
This story sent chills down my spine. Wow. We have entered a Kafka-esque place, a labyrinth where we are guilty until proven innocent. There’s going to be a rally in Albany on June 8th to protest the testing. Everybody who can come should come:
http://www.nysut.org/cps/rde/xchg/nysut/hs.xsl/ra_18895.htm
I am glad you were able to recover yourself by using your curriculum as your arsenal. As ELA/SS teachers, we teach propaganda and its purposes. We teach ethical and moral treatment to our students telling them their rights and how they should behave as proper citizens. Funny how they don’t realize that we are intelligent enough to defend ourselves with pedagogy and simple common sense. I salute this teacher for revealing his ordeal. Many of us are going through archaic “witch hunts”, too. I am glad rratto had union support. I perceive that had he been in another state, he would have been “let go” with no hope of return. They DO owe him an apology and they should offer a statement to his students, parents, and staff releasing his name from any negative connotation associated with being “escorted out.”
This “Allison” needs to get a life rather than spending her time Twitter-stalking.
I am requesting that the personal attack on Allison stop. I am not happy what she did, but lets rise above the pettiness she began. Keep it professional please.
Thank you for your support, the responses have been overwhelming.
The underlining issues remains.. As teachers are we expected to leave our First Amendment Rights at the schoolhouse door? As professionals are our concerns which are backed by valid research respected? Why have teachers become our nation’s scapegoats?
We are all horrified that this happened to you, and at the hands of a supposed peer. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help, rratto.
I have to disagree with you, rratto.
Just as we tell our students that their actions have consequences, this vicious little informer and her ilk – whose cowardly, advance-yourself-by-destroying-others behavior is reminiscent of the Block Committees that keep people in line in Cuba and China – need to be taught a lesson, whether it’s a libel lawsuit or widespread shaming and shunning.
They’re the one’s attacking us, and we shouldn’t allow them to claim victimhood when we defend ourselves.
I’m all for civil, respectful behavior, and in my personal interactions seek to avoid conflict, but there are also times when calls for civility reinforce an unjust system.
At this late date, I don’t worry about hurting the feelings of people who are trying to take food off my table and put my students up for sale, and neither should the rest of us.
We should make sure these vicious S.O.B.s see that teachers will not passively go to their doom, and that there’s a price to be paid for trying to destroy someone’s career.
I agree. This person was trying to get rid of one more teacher who disagrees with the status quo–the testing regime. These people are out to silence teacher’s voices. I believe they sense the end is near and are taking down as many as possible. rratto, I realize you are trying to take the high road, but in this case, it won’t help and this person needs to be called out for what she has done.
I agree. This sort of action on her part is grossly negligent. She brought the negative reactions down on her own head. And I don’t think it’s unprofessional for people to respond to protect colleagues and the profession against irresponsible attacks, particularly of the sort she engaged in.
rratto, you are a gentleman, and I respect your actions and comments.
I just wanted to clarify my comment: while I think this person should receive wide reprobation for her disgraceful behavior towards you (reprobation that should be shared with your Principal), I don’t think that justifies delving into her personal life.
Her informing on you is egregious enough, and has everything to do with the issues discussed on this blog. Her family and personal life are irrelevant.
I do not think that posting the results of a Google search qualify as a personal attack. One may question whether I should have included the link about her marital issues but that was one of the first things that came up. She chose to react to a single tweet online without doing due diligence. I think I treated her far more fairly than she did you. And I find it fascinating that she has now deleted her Twitter account, perhaps not knowing that (a) a number of people have already taken screen prints of relevant information, and (b) it is still available in situations of lawsuits and criminal investigations from Twitter.
Excellent points. I greatly admire how you stood up for your self and I am horrified but ( sadly in this climate) not surprised that it happened. There doesn’t seem to be any clear sighted actions to rational complaints about how this testing is abusing learning and education. Your students are lucky to have you as a teacher and role model.
Has Allison Sitts entered into this convo. under “exhausted by the stress”. She just wanted someone to look into this math question to make sure it wasn’t a test question.
Okay, I am not Allison Sitts and there is no need to make my response covert actions. I do not like muckracking and no matter what this woman did, her custody battle truly has no point in being raised in an education forum. It takes away completely from the actions taken by the district ( hideous and beyond believable). Playing devils advocate for someone’s else’s actions perhaps but the initial actions taken perhaps could not have seen the totally unreasonable actions taken by the district. If reporting on something means that all personal ‘skeletons’ are free game to be reported on the internet, then how much moral high ground will be left when mudslinging becomes part of the equation.
Agreed. The fact that something so personal can be so easily found on a public forum is abominable, and no one deserves to have any of his or her personal actions on display for all and sundry…yet transparency dictates that matters of public record be public. It’s unfortunate, but we can and should choose to not address personal matters in this debate.
We need to rise above the lure of ruining a person’s life with exposure of his or her personal circumstances for any reason, vengeance or not.
Ms. Sitts herself ought to do the same, but she chose to put a stranger’s actions into question to the extent that it interfered WRONGFULLY with his reputation. The school system is just as much at fault for the mishandling of this circumstance, and for this terrible mistake, they need to make amends. Unfortunately they are most likely protected by law from any repercussions of their actions.
Last week, we as potential test proctors signed an agreement that stated we would not reproduce or distribute any of the test material from the state testing booklets. We signed the document–we need to honor that contract. However, nowhere did it say we should report strangers if we have a “hunch” that they have breeched that contract. This is a sticky wicket, and as such, the investigative procedures ought to be followed with sensitivity to the people who are most affected by them: this man and his students. There were so many wrongs here, none of which were committed by the people who suffered the consequences of these actions.
It’s time to reform the reformers and their Police State antics.
ah but that link that is largely personal information is also highly relevant. her ex husband apparently informed her former employer of workplace wrongdoing and the end result was she had to take a new job. while we arent given any additional details I think thats very telling when in her new job she calls up a school and claims a teacher is tweeting test questions with gross indifference to the truth of the matter. she took these actions as an employee of the state, and should be held liable for such.
And by the way, HOW RIDICULOUS WAS THAT TEST ITEM? Imagine being a ten or eleven year old and that being ONE of thirty five or so math questions you face in one test period of seventy minutes (followed by a short break and then thirty five more math items in another seventy minute period). That may not be the exact structure of where ratto teaches, but it is what my kids endured here.
Due to the secrecy of the tests, it is hard to know how ridiculous some test items are, but it would light a fire under many parents if they could see. I get annoyed just looking at practice items- my fourth grade niece had some stapled booklet she was supposed to complete over spring break, and we were all disgusted by an item that had no correct answer because “all of the above” was not an option. These tests are not high quality. But parents have to be paying attention to discover that. It is difficult to discern when no one is allowed to talk about the test. I understand protecting the test bank, but testing has become too pervasive, too insidious, too high stakes, to ignore what the heck your kids are facing when they crack open that sealed booklet. I am not a teacher so I don’t see the tests either, but I see all the practice items (though my kids stopped doing them a few years ago once I figured out what a waste of time it was).
The secrecy protects the test company.
The problem is that First Amendment rights are being infringed upon by the intimidation of what’s going on now in schools. I’m sure all teachers feel they are being watched and watched closely. This is wrong, wrong, and more wrong. I do know that there are lawyers that specialize in First Amendment rights and can file suit against people that attack those rights. Hope all teachers keep that in mind. You could make a splash and
perhaps intimidate Big Brother by filing a suit. God help all of our wonderful, hardworking, and dedicated teachers through all of this. Something in me tells me the pendulum is starting to swing the other way.
I do like the idea of striking back. We have been silenced by fear for too long. Thank you for posting this story.
I think it’s time the parents get involved. These are “your” children and their education is being hijacked by politicians. It’s not fair to them or their future.
I say we start by petitioning to have this program removed from the NYS public school system. I would, personally lobby for new legislation, provided the new programs can’t be changed, that our tax money no longer support the public school system and go to the “private school” of our choosing. I’m sure some of these talented teachers would love to teach your children in a private setting that is not controlled by political legislative B.S.
It’s time the government step back and OUT of our schools and take care of the business they were HIRED to do!
This isnt a first amendment issue. his is an issue of libel. The accuser in this case isnt some uninformed layman, she works for the agency that conducts these state tests. If she is making these accusations she should CLEARLY know if a question IS or is NOT on the state test. The fact that the teacher was cleared tells me it was NOT on the state test. Sitts made her allegation with clear disregard for it being correct or not. Furthermore she made the accusation as an employee of the state. She should be fired and held liable in civil court for her action. Do a google on the woman, it is apparently not the first time she has been accused of workplace impropriety.
Susan
Your post is so inspiring!!
Time to flood the internet with scanned/photocopied/photographed images of the test items,exposing their lack of developmental appropriateness, invalidity, shoddy construction and venality.
So-called education reform, which is really a hostile takeover of the public schools and an attack on the teaching profession, cannot succeed without high stakes exams.
The so-called reformers are using test data to commodify children and destroy public education; let’s undermine them by letting some sunlight expose their bogus metrics, and take back the schools for the public.
I agree, Citizen Joe. Billions and billions in public money going to line the private pockets of corporations. And we have no option but to pay and pay and pay (in taxes and through devastating consequences) as the education system is dismantled and sold off to the profiteers. On the way down this ugly path, highly educated and proficient teachers (the beautiful people) are harrassed, unduly challenged and marginalized as unworthy of their profession and pay. This could truly be the social dilemma of the century.
Agreed, we need to get our hands on these tests and leak them, so that parents can see how pathetic they are. The last thing we need is our tax dollars being squandered and our kids’ brains being rotted by teaching to a buffoonish test.
My daughter told me she learned this in a 7th grade ADVANCED math class!!!
This is like testing a toddler on jumping rope and just repeating over and over that “it’s rigorous….you fail unless you can do it!” AND your parents fail for not teaching you the right way!
Stay strong – the truth will be revealed!
Why have teachers become our nation’s scapegoats? Because they are an easy target and a distraction away from the 2% who have plundered our nation’s resources over the years with assorted speculative bubbles and now want compliant sheep spoon feed entertainment which passes as news. Critical thinking and creativity are necessary for our democracy and sadly standardized testing does not measure either of these skills.
It also leaves people less informed and unable to analyze the news particularly as it related to education. After destroying other industries, the privateers are coming after education. The public needs to be made aware what their agenda is, what views they have in regards to delivery of instruction, content, and on teachers.
I know, as a taxpayer and parent of 3 young children, I am outraged that my tax dollars are being used to support a pro-testing, uninspired curriculum with Pearson stamped across all their workbooks. My son, whose teacher said belongs in a “gifted-and talented program” sadly informed me that their school “doesn’t have such a program.”
My school taxes go up every year on an underwater home to support what? Why are the costs so high? I will be going to my district’s Board of Education Meeting on May 14th and in the future and I implore all those concerned to get informed and get involved.
VERY WELL SAID!!
Parents have the power to change this madness.
So if a group of people cheat for a multi thousand dollar bonus, it takes years to get an investigation, but if someone might leak a common core test question, the authorities jump on it like the nuclear launch codes have been compromised. Maybe the launch codes are encrypted in PEMDAS, the Russians and the Chinese don’t know their order of operations.
Love this comment..LOL
an earlier post cited intimidation tactics. That’s absolutely correct. Public Education will only survive the agenda if any/all critical thinking is eradicated.
Well-stated. I absolutely agree. There is no room to question or one is labeled a boat-rocker. The mantra of this public education debacle has become “Shut up and drink the kool aid.”
Correct me if I’m wrong. Don’t First Amendment rights protect the citizen’s speech from being a cause of arrest by the Government? First Amendment rights don’t protect a person from being fired or suspended by his employer for insubordination. In this case, the math tweet was not a distribution of a secure test question, and the teacher was certainly treated savagely, but I don’t think the First Amendment extends to job protection. Just a minor point, really.
Actually First Amendment rights do extend to job protection. While they will not keep you from getting fired for insubordination, it is illegal to fire someone for expressing their opinions. In Pickering v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that a teacher could not be fired for expressing his or her opinion as long as 1)it did not breach confidentiality or undermine the superior/subordinate relationship, 2) did not interfere with job performance or school operations, or 3) did not include reckless or knowingly false statements. In the absence of these 3 conditions the Court stated that the employer is not justified in taking negative action. A second court case, Mt. Healthy v. Doyle, found that while teachers have First Amendment rights, they cannot use those rights to shield themselves against negative employment action if they are a marginally effective teacher and there is documented evidence of other reasons for being fired. Both decisions hold that, barring other factors that could lead to dismissal, a teacher’s First Amendment rights do protect them from being fired because it is protected speech.
rratto:
I was thinking about this today while I was weeding and tilling my garden…
How did the math specialist know that the math expression you posted was in fact a question from the NY Assessment? Is she a teacher?
If she isn’t a teacher, then how and why did she have access to the NY Assessment? Aren’t actual test proctors the only one to see the real test (other than those that created the tests)?
If she is a teacher, and she saw the tests just like you did, then isn’t SHE the one that called attention to it as being on the state test? Was she escorted out of her place of employment just like you?
Excellent point.
I’ve been wondering where Allison would have gotten access to the test since the issue was first raised. And you can be sure that if she did, she wouldn’t want that widely known.
I was thinking the same!
Does she also not realize that any person on the planet could take a group of fractions and possible very easily create the same test question.
I think the Greek Mathematician ancestors should sue the city of New York for using their ideas!
This whole situation seems like another episode of the Education Crazy Train. Teachers are under fire because they claim their unfettered love for children, yet they tweet-whine online about that mean, old testing and their nasty principals. Hello? Professionalism. Let’s attack medical schools for expecting their students to perform on tests. That’s not going to happen. Most standardized, common core-oriented testing is aimed low. If students aren’t performing, why are we not looking at teachers as a major part of the problem? That’s like a parent saying, “Jimmy was at his desk for two hours. Of course, he did his homework.” Just because the teacher is in the classroom for 45-90 minutes doesn’t necessarily mean that student learning is taking place.
What planet are you on?
Earth to Dorothy!
I’m on the planet of experience. How about you?
If the tests used to assess medical students were as irrelevant as those currently being used to assess students and then abused to assess things they were never designed to measure (e.g., teachers, administrators, schools, districts, states), then people would quite reasonably be attacking medical schools or whomever were responsible for the bad testing.
Not all testing is bad, but bad testing actually IS worse than none at all. I would rather have no data than truly bad data, because the former leaves the possibility of figuring out what’s actually going on through other means, while the latter invariably leads to crackpot, highly-politicized and arbitrary conclusions and policy decisions.
No, of COURSE just because a teacher is in the classroom, it guarantees nothing about what any individual student learns. Wake up to the reality of instruction and learning. There are bad teachers, but there are many good ones asked to perform miracles, then judged wanting for failing to do so. I don’t know what you do to pay your bills, Dorothy, but I hope you’re evaluated more fairly than what you blithely advocate for teachers.
I’ve spent most of my life in education, as a teacher, administrator, and college professor and feel appropriately qualified to offer an alternative point of view. It’s not about being blithe; it’s about seeing things differently.
And the socio-economic level of the places you’ve taught, Dorothy? I’ve spent the last 20+ years working with schools in Willow Run, Ypsilanti, Detroit, Flint, Wayne-Westland, Warren, and similar communities in Michigan, along with schools the South Bronx, Spanish Harlem, and the Lower East Side in NYC. I’ve seen poverty, malnutrition, emotional and physical abuse, environmental poisoning, substance abuse, crime, pre-teen sex, adolescent pregnancy, disease, ad nauseam, at levels that would make many Americans think I was making it up. And those are just a subset of the places where abject poverty is at work before and during students’ school years (not to mention the impact on their care-givers, if they have them).
You propose that it’s a fair measure of teacher, school, administrative, district, or state effectiveness to compare those apples with the oranges of West Bloomfield, Farmington Hills, or Grosse Pointe, MI, and Larchmont, Scarsdale, or Mamaroneck, NY? The exact same tests, the exact same scale, and so forth? That’s “useful” data for you?
If “experience” is what you’re speaking with, maybe you need to add a few things to the mix. I don’t want to be mean-spirited, but I’m hard-pressed to believe that your experience is wide enough or that you’re using sufficient analytic and other skills if your conclusion is that those of us who think the testing system as currently comprised might be broken are merely whiners who don’t think anyone should be responsible (I won’t use the deformer word “accountable” given that none of the folks who use it will agree to any accountability themselves) for their work.
Are there teachers who use lame excuses? Sure thing. But that explains very little of the “achievement gap,” which much more realistically is an economic, equity, social justice, and resource gap. Making out that the majority of teachers in this country and their unions are THE primary cause for low test scores (and that test scores are the sine qua non for evaluating what goes on in schools) is at very best naive.
as a small point, people with a Larchmont address, whether in the Village or in the unincorporated part of the Town of Mamaroneck, go to Mamaroneck schools. Some in the Village of Mamaroneck go to Rye Neck Schools. Speaking as a member of ’63 at Mamaroneck HS – gee, that is 50 years ago.
I’m not a global education traveler like you, but I’ve done enough in more than 41 years of education to know that the so-called profession is increasingly being populated by whiners. There are legitimate issues to discuss, and I’m glad that my post has stirred the pot a bit in a different direction.
I’m not sure you’ve directly addressed much, if anything, of what I’ve raised. Further, the whining can quite fairly be viewed as coming from many people outside of classrooms, particularly politicians, billionaires, hedge-fund managers, and others who view public education as an excellent market for turning huge profits and/or inserting anti-democratic political and social agendas.
Such people have in fact been whining about the “failure” of US public schools at least as far back as the days of Horace Mann. I hope you know enough about the history of public schools and various “reform” efforts in the last couple of centuries in this country to recognize that just saying that schools are “failing” doesn’t quite make it so. And until there’s a bit more consensus about: A) what the purposes of public education are, and B) whose voices should count most in determining both the purposes and the most reasonable methods for pursuing them, I fear that it’s mostly those with money and power who will control the “conversation” and what actually happens. And I’m quite certain that that is not going to serve the interests of those most in need of effective public instruction, free from the interests of profiteers and power-grabbing, self-interested exploiters.
Of course, your mileage may differ and clearly does. But I remain puzzled as to your views on whether the current testing obsession is a fair measure of what students know or can do, and grounds for then determining rewards and, let’s face it, punishments for teachers, administrators, schools, districts, states, etc. I’ve raised some serious questions that you don’t seem inclined to address.
have no idea why you are responding to me, since I was not responding to you. Your remarks are irrelevant to what I posted.
Sorry . . . I have no idea what happened. Pardon my lack of expertise.
Dorothy please come down from the emerald tower. This isn’t about whining about principals. This is about A PRINCPLE ! This is about abusing children with 540 minutes of testing. This is about a nation jumping into untested and I piloted standards that are another age appropriate. This is about ignoring society’s responsibility to deal with poverty, and other social issues. This is about Billions of dollars being funneled into the coffers of 1 publisher. This is about adminstrators trying to take away a teacher’s right to free speech. This is about secrecy and hidden databases.
Oh Dorothy, click those slippers together and come back to reality. You’ve spent too much time in Oz and you need to revisit your roots in the classroom.
Excuse the typos – still working on perfecting posting with an I pad
It’s amazing how much education drama can be evoked with differing viewpoints. Some teachers continue the mantra of caring and feeling for the children, but a lot of the dialogue seems pompous and self-serving.
I’m not hearing anything from you that tells me anything that would be of use to anyone currently working with kids in schools. You surely must have something more to offer than harsh words and insults given all your experience.
I don’t recall saying a thing about “caring” or “feeling,” by the way. So where, exactly, do your accusations of pomposity or being self-serving come from? Furthermore, I’ve not said what my role in schools is. I should mention that I’m not a school employee, don’t belong to a union, don’t have tenure, don’t get benefits, etc. I also happen to be the single parent of a public school student. I’ve worked with non-profit charter schools managed by non-profit institutions, public schools, and, unfortunately, charter schools managed by for-profit companies. All have their strengths and weaknesses, all have some great teachers and some not-so-great ones. But I’ve yet to find a place in the last category that didn’t treat students and teachers like interchangeable widgets whose only possible value is the income they generate for the corporation. That tends to make me a bit less empathetic to the moves the privatizers are making and the various tactics (high-stakes testing being a major one) being used to gain power and leverage towards the goal of making $$.
Obviously I have not made your day. Don’t be hatin’. I haven’t addressed some of the commentary, not just yours, because I choose not to. It’s my right to choose what i want to address, as it is your right not to like my choices. If you read your posts from my viewpoint, you would perhaps discern some pomposity. From your stance, you feel that I am being snarky and have little to add to this grandiose argument.
I’m all for the common core and testing for mastery. I’m a product of public education and would like for it to continue in a positive direction. Unfortuantely, that is not happening with all the squabbling over free speech, what should be tested, how long the tests should be, etc.etc. If you check out the national stats, you will find that the largest growing student demographic in the US is homeschooled children.
Cyberschools, online learning, and even boxed programs, like The Calvert School curriculum, are eroding public education more and more each year. In my area of PA, there are many homeschool cooperatives where parents work together to provide for their children’s learning. The parents, typically products of public schools themselves and a rather diverse group, don’t want their kids to be subjected to public education. You could probably predict their list of problems: ineffective teachers, student bullying, and exposure to unseemly behavior and even sex education. It is an entrepreneurial movement already causing issues in local publc schools with funding and staffing.
Although you may not appreciate my edginess, I sometimes just want the teacher whining to stop. With each screech about what’s wrong with public education, another family makes the choice to homeschool or cyberschool. It is something to think about.
That reduces you to whining about alleged whining. Unsurprisingly, I’m not very moved. And I don’t sense you’re reaching anyone else with your approach. Absent something substantive from you, I see no point in taking your posts seriously henceforth.
Henceforth and forthwith, I better understand that having a differing opinion on this site is not appreciated, by you, at least. I find it amusing that you don’t take me seriously.
You should take it seriously.
It is not your differing opinion that is offensive but your disdain for teachers.
I have no universal disdain for teachers or I would be engaged in self-disdainment. At the same time, all teachers and principals are not excellent. To people not in education, it often sounds like whining (testing, accountability, administrative unfairness), especially to people who have lost jobs through downsizing, etc. They look at teacher pensions and tenure with irritation. I don’t think that educators realize that even legitimate views expressed are received negatively by the general population.
All politicians are not excellent. All plumbers are not excellent. All policeman are not excellent. All doctors are not excellent. It is up to the administrators to support and train teachers and make a decision who has earned due process rights. I have experienced many more incompetent administrators than teachers in 27 years. And the small percentage of ineffective teachers is not why we are in a privatization frenzy. You are extraordinarily misinformed.
Actually I find you to be a whiner. So you are whining about teachers whining. You are clueless about what is happening and what we face everyday. I find your communication unproductive and predictable….moving on to learn and improve and it won’t be from you.
Thanks for sharing your viewpoint. I am usually a positive person, but it’s hard to be positive about public education these days.
I’ve never dwelled in an ivory, Oz-oriented tower and I get free speech, so I don’t need a lecture on that. However, if teachers spent more time preparing their students effectively for whatever tests are in the pipeline, it would help diffuse the current malaise. Having been in many classrooms over the years observing lessons, I can safely say that not all teachers are doing a consistently good job in helping students learn. Less self-absorbed complaining and more time spent on developing effective, engaging lessons would enable teachers to maintain focus on the students they have been hired to serve.
I’ve seen no suggestion here or in any of Diane’s blog posts (and certainly never in anything I’ve posted in 20 years on-line) that all teachers are doing a swell job or that the lessons being served up in mathematics classrooms are all just ducky. Far from it. But I see nothing coming from the high-stakes testing, educational deform, privatizing crowd that will improve a single lesson. Nothing. Perhaps you have something to share with us specifically to illustrate your thinking about what would comprise improvement in a particular content area.
It seems as though Dorothy’s answer more test prep. I certainly hope you are not telling your students in your college classes that. Instead of sitting on your rump observing teachers over the years, perhaps you should have spent more time developing your own craft.
Your assumptions are skewed.. Pity the student teacher subjected to your evaluations.
You are making lots of judgments about a person you don’t know. Even when i was a principal, I was teaching and have never stopped evolving. I find it interesting that my commentary has been so provocative. I’m not alone in my views.. They just don’t exist on this site.
H E L L O. Dorothy…pot calling kettle. You’re actually talking about judging people someone doesn’t know? Are you kidding? Are you for real? What exactly have you been doing all day. Get a clue! Are you also the only one EVOLVING?
Dorothy,
I normally don’t mind feeding the trolls, but something didn’t quite seem right with your comments. Then I found this article you authored.. http://www.pennlive.com/editorials/index.ssf/2010/10/alternative_teacher_certificat.html
Why didn’t you reveal that your job as a professor, was to fast track new teachers via Towsons MAT program. You compared that program to Teach for America.
Your disdain for traditional teacher Ed, and teachers unions are also quite evident in a cursory google search.
So now that I know who you relly are, I will stand by my previous comments.
Thanks for posting…now we can judge someone we know more about. Why didn’t you tell us Dorothy?
I wasn’t aware I was required to post a resume before commenting on the site. Each site has its own quirks and persona, which continues to be a learnig experience for me. That article is actually old news as I am “retired” from public and university education, enabling me to have more time to write and irritate people on websites.
Dorothy sounds like Dylan’s Mr. Jones:
You walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked
And you say, “Who is that man ?”
You try so hard
But you don’t understand
Just what you’ll say
When you get home.
Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones ?
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/bob+dylan/ballad+of+a+thin+man_20021423.html
So, Dorothy. You’re assuming that these “tests” accurately measure a teacher’s job performance. Is that correct?
Why? Are you an educator? Or a test designer?”
Why would you equate them with tests for medical students? Are you doing this out of ignorance?
Teachers, students and parents have said repeatedly that these tests are often completely unrelated to what is being taught in class.
No one is “whining” about “mean old principals”. That’s you, Dorothy.
What we’re discussing here is these “tests”—which make millions for the corporations that develop and administer them—are all about politics, control and money; not education.
And if you can’t see something that is so obvious, then perhaps you’re not ready to join this dialogue.
I always enjoy this kind of reaction PSP: if you can’t see what’s obvious to us in the educational know GET OFF THIS BLOG. So much for free speech. The liberal agenda relies on scorn, contempt, and silencing to get its way, not on real arguments. Bless you. Your sins are forgiven. Go forth and sin no more. Let the idiots speak unless you yourself want to be silenced. Do unto others? Oh dear, that’s something I should apply to myself, shouldn’t I? Well, I must drink some Kool Aid to sweeten my soul. See you all in June.
umm, Harlan? Last time I checked the name on the blog is Diane Ravitch, not Harlan Underhill. You are here as a guest, and have no right to tell someone else to get off the blog. Hardly demonstrating your claimed libertarian orientation.
Oh, and as far as being in the know about education, it seems on balance that the totality of what you say here has demonstrated how much you don’t know about education.
So I remind you of the famous words by Samuel Langhorne Clemens that “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”
Ken, to be fair, Harlan was mouthing the words of someone who told Dorothy to get off the blog, not telling anyone himself to get off.
Touche, Kenneth Bernstein. In spite of my arrogant tone, I have discovered that I know a good deal less than I thought I did about the current state of education, especially public education. My evidence is mainly anecdotal, in that I am familiar with three different charters with which the parents in them are VERY satisfied. That’s not enough to make the kind of sweeping generalization I have, so I accept your correction completely.
In truth, what I’m really after is answers to a couple of questions. I still don’t understand why Obama/Duncan are doing what they are doing to one of their major constituencies. It just doesn’t make sense to me, and I haven’t seen anyone explain it in satisfactory terms.
The second question is how public education is so adamant about chastising the capitalist hand that feeds it. And to that puzzle as well, I have seen no answer in satisfactory (to me) terms. “Greed” is just not enough of an explanation to my mind, although it MAY be.
If you will read my post again, I think you will find that I was protesting someone (PSP) inviting some one else (Dorothy) to exit the blog and to post no more because they did not see what was “obvious.” Paul Goldenberg read my post correctly. I didn’t use quotation marks effectively. For permitting mis-reading I accept partial responsibility, Ken.
Diane has been extremely gracious about NOT booting me even though some have asked her to do. I am in complete support of free and complete expression. No doubt I have abused the privilege Diane has accorded me here on some occasions. I really do care about good education for all, but I just don’t see how taxing he rich more is going to bring it about.
Michael is my first name, Harlan, just for the record.
Did you read the article in last Sunday’s NYT called “No Rich Child Left Behind”? If not, please do. It addresses some of your questions.
I don’t see any reason for Diane to boot you or anyone to call for that. I do think Dorothy actively sought to bring wrath down upon her head. I think she gets off on that, as if so doing somehow confirms her views. Unfortunately for her, it doesn’t. Telling the truth might do her much more good, but I don’t get the sense that veracity is her strong suit. At best, she offers a very selective perspective, one that might fit a subset of the bigger picture, but not a sufficiently large subset to counter what I’ve seen and heard about from education colleagues in NYC, Detroit, California, Florida, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, Houston, Dallas, etc.
I accept partial responsibility for misreading that you were quoting someone else, or I would have directed those remarks to her. As for taxes, the rich are actually fairly lowly taxed in this country. We built a middle class society in the 1950s, when union membership was at its highest share of the workforce, and when incremental tax rates were also at their highest historical rate. We built the interstate highway system, expanded higher education, and sank billions into research that benefited corporations. The idea that raising taxes is somehow going to cripple either innovation or the ability of people to get wealthy is simply not accurate.
Hear, hear!
It seems likely that you do favor higher taxes. How much higher? What you tax you always get less of.
J. H. Underhill
Harlan,
People on all sides of these issues can get nasty and strident. That doesn’t make them wrong (or right). But coming onto a site to merely stir up a bunch of crud and not address any substantive questions posed to you is a form of trolling, and there seems little doubt that Dorothy is doing some of that sort of trolling here. She has a viewpoint and isn’t going to address anything that might undermine her viewpoint. That she chose THIS particular thread to air her grievances against teachers and unions seems in particularly poor taste, all things considered.
So if a few folks here are more than a bit sick of what she has to say, I’d suggest you consider the context in which she’s saying it (as well as her manner of discourse and her refusal to deal with anything that weakens her views). Of course, you need not do so.
But please. Spare us the absurd position that “liberals” have the market cornered on any of the tactics you suggest are unique to people left of center. A random stroll through countless right-wing, Tea Party, and Libertarian web sites gives that the lie. I know intelligent conservatives who argue substantively and fairly, but they are hardly representative of the majority of people who argue educational politics from right of center. And for every pissed-off progressive, I can see you and raise you a dozen right-wing bloviators. Hell, just read commentary on WaPo, Yahoo, WSJ, for starters, none of which are officially super right wing. Would make a sailor blush.
That’s funny…I didn’t interpret, “And if you can’t see something that is so obvious, then perhaps you’re not ready to join this dialogue,” as “GET OFF THIS BLOG.” I suppose people have their own interpretations.
And Harlan, don’t ever believe you aren’t welcome here. People need to hear from all sides of the debate. Thing is, people don’t like to be insulted by accusations without evidence. There are plenty of reports on here to see a conspiracy on any side, but the sources without bias and their own agendas are the ones that frame reality. Unfortunately, a person immersed in the public schools is cursed with both the view of first-hand experience AND natural bias. I suppose one might ask for sensitivity and understanding, and not an over-simplification of the issues up for discussion.
Here is a good one! Here is the wiki created by the woman who reported rrato: http://tst-math.wikispaces.com/
It looks as if this wiki contains common core MATH EXAMPLES…http://tst-math.wikispaces.com/Mathematical+Practices
Linked off of that even more examples: http://commoncoretools.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/ccss_progression_nbt_2011_04_073.pdf
Might they also be from (or similar to) the NYS assessment?
I guess teachers must learn their place in this charade.
What a bunch of bull on her WIKI WEAK excuse for Plans
Take a look at the State’s sample items. It is the biggest joke ever.
The state’s give you a general concept of what to teach and the teacher has to guess what is being tested.
What the state’s call deep are actually tricky questions.
I will find those and post them when I have more time.
Yep…The teachers have been thrown under a bus.
I heard that in one state……the teacher can not receive the highest mark on an evaluation unless they teach teachers!! HOW ABSURD!!
Teachers that teach teachers..with boring wordy unnecessary workshops are out of the classroom because they can NOT teach the students.
Teachers who teach students can not receive the highest mark….I CAN NOT BELIEVE THIS!!
You will be hearing more about this later .
a lot of states have bad questions, even starting with the sample questions. When Maryland first moved towards its High School Assessments for graduation, the sample question in Government read something like this:
If a 51st state were added to the US, what would be the effect upon the makeup of Congress?
a. The House and Senate would stay the same
b. The House would expand and the Senate would stay the same
c. The House would stay the same and the Senate would expand
d. Both the House and Senate would expand
As many of us who lived through 1959 would remember, that question has two correct answers. Each state gets 2 Senators, so the Senate expands upon admission of another state. But each state must have at least 1 House member, and no state can have a representative taken away and given to another state except as a result of reapportionment after the decennial census. From 1959 until the new Congress was seated in 1963, the authorized size of the House was 437, thus for a brief period answer (d) is correct. Over the long term, answer (c) is correct because Congress has set the ceiling for House membership at 435.
Some of us tried to point this out, but the Maryland State Department of Education dismissed our complaints, even when we wrote and explained it to major newspapers. Which is why we were not surprised to see real tests that had questions with more than one correct answer or with no correct answers.
At least Maryland released its tests – albeit not in a timely enough fashion to challenge the scoring on them.
When I was growing up and taking Regents Tests in NY State, the state law required that all tests be released. Oh, and they were graded within the school by your own teacher. Somehow that did not seem to lead to any kind of major problems.
This culture of testing is turning us against each other. We shouldn’t have to worry that a misinformed colleague would jeopardize our careers.
You hit the nail on the head …and..if you think colleague A is going to work with Colleague B ..WRONG…Colleague A is in for him/herself.
My understanding from his write-up is that this woman was not a colleague. She worked in a private, test-prep facility while he works as a teacher in public schools.
I don’t know about New York State, but in some states, this teacher can potentially sue for defamation of character. While the damages have been mitigated, there’s always the potential for punitive damages issued by a jury against someone making false allegations. Unless that person can prove she believed, for a fact, that the accusations were true, she could face some fines for defamation, possibly. Again, it depends on your state.
I’m a little confused here. A teacher is taken out of his classroom in front of his students and not allowed to return. Then he is put under investigation for something that could have been cleared up in a minute. His career and veracity is threatened, and this you call “whining?” Yet you have no problems making assumptions over a person’s effectiveness as a teacher because he is trying to shed light on an issue? I am over 60 and was an educator and staff developer for 30 years, so I have been around the block as well. I found time to write effective lesson plans, make the appropriate charts and materials, and work independently with my students and still have a voice. I considered myself more than a chalk and talk teacher. I suppose you want us to live in a world where the principal says “Jump” and we say “How high?”
btw, NYS principals have been circulating petitions against the over-reliance of high stakes testing. What a bunch of whiners!!!
As one “schoolgal” to another, principals have no tenure and no protection from a union, typically, They don’t like being judged by testing either (especially since they are not doing the actual teaching and learning), so I get their angst about results. Petitions are generally unproductive, and only make principals who mount them look silly. Who would want to be rated by the results of someone else? Amazingly, it is done throughout society, most obviously in corporations and professional sports. Education is catching up with the rest of society.
Considering the way in which you describe yourself, it would be great to work in a school filled with people who take teaching so seriously. From your writing style, I don’t think you would be tweeting math problems or whatever the teacher did to get into hot water. I imagine there were a number of poor choices made by people in the situation up and down the line. In the NFL, players/coaches are not allowed to tweet during games because of unintended consequences, usually evil. The teacher set things in motion with a tweet, and all hell broke loose. I doubt that he/she expected to reap what was tweeted.
When I wrote the short commentary, I figured there would be a reaction. This is a site where the expectation seems to be philosophical alignment. With corporations and baseball teams, the CEO gets axed if not enough toaster ovens are sold and the manager is let go because the team isn’t hitting. Accountability is not an unknown in American life. Yet, no one seems to want accountability in education. Excuses abound. Society is tired of the drama. More and more families are choosing to homeschool their children. It is the fastest growing education demographic in the US.
“no one seems to want accountability in education”…..you’re wrong, dead wrong, completely wrong, off the charts wrong. You have an axe to grind and you abhor teachers. End of dialogue with another hater….oh..and stop WHINING Dorothy!
Here is yet another pice that fully explains Dorothy’s travels through Oz. http://educationnext.org/the-qualified-teacher/
Scroll down to her letter . You will read about her disdain for teachers unions and her support for performance pay.
A few sweet nuggets from Dorothy:
a teacher’s years of experience may or may not have relevance
there is no bonus for them if student scores go up and there is no loss of pay if student scores go down
The problem often lies with unions
I have observed teachers with 30 years of experience who avoid accountability and meaningful instruction
I would welcome the opportunity to determine who on my staff would receive differentiated pay, especially if value-added student achievement and standardized test scores are tracked as a part of the measurement. It would be a sea change of thinking in the education culture. Many of us are ready for it because it is ultimately the right thing to do for students and learning.
And she told me she had no disdain for teachers………hahahahahahahaha!
Thanks for your kind words. Dorothy is part of the problem not the solution. I guess she supports pulling a teacher out of their classroom without cause. It appears she supports the idea that teachers should lose their First Amendment Rights at the schoolhouse door. We know she also has a disdain for teachers who speak out to clear their name. Thank goodness she is no longer in the field. Troll on Dorothy, troll on
You found me out. I am not a fan of unions.
Not a fan of unions? Or teachers, or professionals, or authentic assessments, or teaching and learning, or joy…..just another hater posing as a “reformer”.
Well, I would hardly call Carol Burris and other principals silly for exposing an unfair policy. Do you know what VAM is???? Do you know how unreliable a statistical measure it is? Many of them also do not have tenure, but that didn’t stop them. The petition was picked up by the media and now many parents across NYS are fighting against teaching to the test and the amount of testing now required every 3 months. Teachers are pretty savvy at making up their own assessments. They don’t need some expensive computer program to do it.
You are right, I don’t use Twitter. But I do use Facebook and have an education page with over 6,000 supporters around the country and more than 30,000 who read my page on a weekly basis. I fight against the same things Mr. R fights against. I wanted to do something useful with my retirement, so I started a page that supports public schools and teachers. They are unjustly vilified by the press each and every day, so having someone else in the profession like yourself doing it doesn’t sit right with me. I know there are teachers out there who shouldn’t be in the classroom, but using VAM will have no effect on them. That’s why I fight for using PAR instead. I fight against using RTTT funding to pay for testing and test materials instead of going directly to the student. I fight against companies like Pearson making money off of our students. I fight against people using RTTT to line their pockets because education is now big business. I fight for parents who form grassroots movement against high-stakes testing and today celebrate with Florida parents the defeat of the Parent Trigger bill which has nothing whatsoever to do with parents. If it weren’t for people using Facebook and Twitter, we would just have people like Michelle Rhee and Bill Gates dictating our opinions through the media.
btw, I taught 5th grade, and that was never a 5th-grade math problem. In fact many of the concepts now taught in math, I learned in high school. And under Common Core they are coming down to the early childhood grades, and that includes kindergarten. This is madness!!
I still don’t see how you can characterize a teacher taken out of his classroom and put under investigation as whining. And then to go on to classify a group of very brave principals who are standing up to the dictates of the state as “silly”. Again you seem to feel we should remain in the corner and not speak until spoken to, and that’s just wrong.
All Mr. R did was shed light on something that needs to be addressed. And for the life of me, I don’t understand where you are coming from. I posted his story on my education page because I supported his efforts to expose a travesty upon the students of NYS and around the country. And, I am proud of any teacher who cares so deeply for his students he is willing to go public. Today most teachers are afraid to speak up, but they seem to be the teachers you admire. Our jobs is not only to teach the curriculum, but teach children how to think for themselves. It’s not only about academics. We have so many children coming to class with so many outside factors effecting them, and as teachers we have to address those concerns as well. School should also be a place where learning can also be fun and reading becomes a lifelong joy. Teaching to the test will not do that.
When a person comments on a website, that person is not necessariy required to know all the nuances of a particular situation. You have made your points well about the nuances and the realities of what was clearly a nasty incident.
It’s great that you have such a popular FB page, appealing to educators and those interested in education topics. That is incredibly awesome! If I find you on FB and like you, I hope you won’t be mean and reject me. My so-called “retirement” has given me other perspectives and allowed me to hear other voices. The voices of my ex-MAT-interns-now-teachers encourage me that there are good teachers out there, fighting the good fight.
Perhaps if I had posted my resume and given the layers of background that encompass a long career, people would not have been so quick to annoint me as a dolt. I think this has been a lively discussion overall, and I didn’t enter into it to change opinions. I wanted to put some ideas on the web-table that are discussed by noneducators to see how people would react. People can call me misinformed, but those noneducator voices are gaining in power and volume.
It is amazing that someone would find my newspaper writing, further analyze me, and post it for others to read/analyze. God love the Internet! Maybe I should post my op-eds on the Flight 93 National Memorial or my 50th high school reunion for everyone to view other facets of me.
Chew on this Dorothy, of the 24k views of my story on this page and my blog, yours was the only negative snarky comment. That alone says a lot.
It merely means that my opinions differ from yours. Appreciate all of the validations you have received and move on.
Dorothy,
It’s interesting how you avoid the very heart of my posts. You came here on attack mode with no regard for a person who went through a horrible ordeal because you disagree with him having the ability to Tweet. But now it’s all clear. You and Allison Sitts have more in common than you realize–you both share the same reform agenda. Allison took it a step further and tried to ruin this teacher’s reputation when he clearly stated he did not break protocols. And I have to wonder if you would have done the same.
You claim you don’t know all the issues, yet you are in a position now where you should. And as far as guiding new teachers, I fail to see how that could possibly happen if they are not presented with all sides of an issue.
Your disdain for unions is also clear. You want teachers to know their place–you want them to be obedient and teach to a scripted curriculum. But the most telling part is when you disparaged principals for taking a stand against high-stakes testing. Maybe you’re the one that is “silly” for writing a letter that glorifies VAM when you come from a state that clearly has alternatives. You must hate PAR because you are not in total control. And teachers should never be part of the decision-making process even though they are the truly stakeholders.
My FB page mission is clear. It doesn’t support high-stakes testing. It doesn’t support using test results to evaluate teachers. So I doubt you would support my page.
You can have the last word because I will no longer try to have a dialogue with you. In fact, I feel very sorry for you. Your bitterness is overwhelming.
I’ll accept the last word and it’s not bitterness. Thank you for taking the time to your views.
It’s defeat…adios!
Obviously all the work below wasn’t keeping her busy enough…
“Allison Sitts, Mathematics Instructional Specialist, is in charge of planning and implementing a customized, professional development service for TST BOCES and component school districts in the area of mathematics. Currently, Allison provides Network Team support to local districts and focuses her efforts on Race to the Top initiatives, including the Common Core Learning Standards for Mathematics and Data Driven Instruction. Other professional development offerings include curriculum mapping, differentiated instruction, using literature as an instructional aid, and using data to meet individual student needs. She is responsible for organizing and facilitating a K-8 Math Coaches Network which is an initiative to open the communication of ideas and best practices in the mathematics area in grades K-8. Allison will also be spending some time working with Model Schools and integrating educational technology.”
That’s funny because Maryland has districts that use PAR and PAR doesn’t use testing to evaluate teachers. Yet, the program is proving to be successful. I doubt I could work for her. I believe in a collaborative spirit.
Just read a letter you posted on a site. So you do know what VAM is, you just don’t care that it has a +/- 30 point margin of error. And, districts that did use merit pay found it didn’t work and abandoned it. I am truly surprised you would not advocate for PAR since it has either produced better teachers, had them leave teaching or were fired.
Please use the word “tenure” in its correct context–Due Process!!! It is not a job for life and I know many principals who did their job and got rid of ineffective teachers and many who just sat by and blamed the union for all the paperwork. You want to see real paperwork? Visit a classroom teacher.
Principals I’ve known who aren’t entrenched in anti-teacher, anti-union mindsets say that any principal who wants to get rid of a bad teacher knows how to do so, but few are willing to exercise due diligence.
Our Dorothy talks about whining teachers. But what about principals who don’t like documenting so that teachers get due process and would prefer to whine about how the union “ties their hands”?
In my experience, competent teachers and principals who work together closely know who the turkeys are. In a better system than we currently have, the impetus would be for everyone to support the poor teachers towards improving. In the US, we like revenge and want to see them fired (and, if possible, drummed out of the profession). I don’t imagine that we’ll be moving towards the Finnish model anytime soon, so I suppose we have to hope that if it’s not possible to help teachers improve (and we might remember that veterans have slumps, that teachers are human and may have personal problems that reduce their effectiveness at one or more points in their careers, and so on), then we can use the established system to move them out of teaching. But the notion that that can’t happen as long as there are unions simply ignores the history of US public education, of the teaching profession, and of the labor movement. There are very good reasons why teaching is a profession that has unions. If those in charge did things differently, maybe it wouldn’t have gone that way. But let’s not forget that America’s 20th century economic boom, its emergence as a super power, and its current position as the only true global power, all followed the rise of unions and the growth of the middle class. Now that the power elite have ridden the labor of the rest of us to a pinnacle never before possible, they want to gut the middle class and reduce everyone not at the very top to minimum wage, powerless peons.
What’s particularly charming, of course, are the folks who hope to get a nice pat on the head and a few extra crumbs from the table from their grateful masters, in return for selling the rest of us out. Must feel great, eh, Dorothy? But I’d be careful: the tide in this country is turning. People are starting to figure out that the billionaires and their flunkies are selling a bunch of lies. Being on the wrong side of history is generally an ugly position to be in. Being on the wrong side of humanity is always obscene.
I’m so happy to hear that no lasting harm came of this atrocity. We here in Texas recently had an actual security violation with our new standardized test, STAAR, and I am sorry to say that a bright student with a very promising future will likely be dealing with the repercussions from a very stupid decision for some time.
I hope you also include Fifth Amendment due process rights in your unit!
This is just AWFUL, & MUST have been EXTREMELY stressful. :(. Thank GOD that there has been a vindication. 🙂
Just HOW the accuser can live with herself, I have NO idea.
I am for one am sick of focusing on tests and not on students. When a child’s value is based on what kind of test score they will earn us we have reached rock bottom!
So, did Allison offer any apology?