Just in from a teacher:
I teach in Albany, New York, and the State Education Department is crazy.
I just completed 1 month of testing. and no real teaching.
We are giving more tests than I ever dreamed possible.
Not only the state exams, but now local measures to help teachers with low testing students.
These new evaluations have spurred the worst frenzy I have ever seen.
It has been brought on by the Race to The Top money.
What a terrible idea no distict should have accepted the money.
There should have been mass protests about the strings attached, and it should be given back.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We are “beholden to” the people we accept money from.
I agree. Give the money back. It is more trouble than it’s worth.
Then we won’t “have to” swallow Common Core, either.
As a traditional, community public school teacher, I’m tired of being told by those in power to just “suck it up” and acccept that RTTT and CCSS are “a given.”
Let’s give back the “given.”
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AMEN!
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Mass protest
June 8
Albany NY
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(as I previously commented on this)
“There should have been mass protests”
This is something that many will be saying after Public Education is completely destroyed. We should-DA!
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I so agree
Wish Diane could get the protest started..
Anyone have a name for the Protest
TRILLION TESTERS MARCH MAYBE???
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Too many states forgot: TANSTAAFL.
Here’s the root of the problem, though — we have a situation in which states apparently CANNOT fund their schools without extra money from the Federal government. That seems to indicate that the Federal government is taking too much in taxes and the states aren’t taking enough.
Once states started NEEDING Federal money in order to run their schools, this became inevitable, no?
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By “this” I mean effective Federal control of local education systems.
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It’s not just taxes. Very few administrators are held accountable for transparency in finances. Why is it that a homeschooling family can educate their child for a couple hundred dollars a year, or even for free, and often get results on par or better than a public school spending upwards of $12,000 a year per student? If the administrators were held accountable, and wasteful spending was eliminated, I believe we would find that the schools do not need more money. Our local superintendent makes more than the mayor of our state. It’s absurd.
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I meant to say the governor, not the mayor. 🙂
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This is a tactic that was perfected in the 3rd world. Tie IMF or World Bank loans to policy changes. Things like cutting the public sector, privatizing water supplies, etc. It is called neoliberalism. The chickens are coming home to roost.
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Everybody should read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.
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Agree.
For a quick introduction to her thesis:
series of 7 video clips from a talk she gave in ’07.
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Not to be pedantic, but the IMF’s policies of enforced privatization, deregulation, destruction of labor rights, elimination of subsidies for social needs and downsizing of the public sector in emerging economies was called Structural Adjustment, a tactic of the neoliberal model.
Today, Structural Adjustment, although the term is not used as often, is being applied to European countries and the US in the form of austerity-driven fiscal policies, attacks on public workers, proposed cutbacks to Social Security and Medicare (by both political parties) and privatization of schools and infrastructure.
And, as you correctly state, as the global prominence of the US has waned, imperialism has come home to roost.
Many years ago, during an inspiring (though unsuccessful) strike of Hormel packinghouse workers, I went to a demonstration in solidarity. One of the speakers was Baldemar Velazquez, the head of the Farm Workers Organizing Committee. His first words to the audience were, “Welcome to the bottom.”
Teachers should keep those words in mind as attacks on us proliferate and intensify. If we want to avoid having Bill Gates’ and Eli Broad’s boots on our throats, it’s time to resist and fight back.
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I have long held a prayer that NC would send that money back too. In fact I’ve tried to think of who I know who might be wealthy enough to help cover it (surely there are a few people in this state who could write that check and get us out of this!!)
I pray for it every day.
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With you
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John King should resign immediately. Gov. Cuomo, Arne Duncan, and President Obama’s bribe has failed miserably.
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Consider this… Florida has been a proponent of everything NCLB and RTTT for 15+ years and this testing craze has resulted in exactly what you descrbed. In St Lucie County, we spend at least 8 weeks of the school year doing testing, resulting in minimal teaching–for some (like Reading), the testing is at least 3 times that. I’m not sure what learning the powers-that-be think is going on–but, hey, “they” get their stats with which to wow the public, the press, and each other.
Lots of money resulting in nothing useful to the student!
Is this what the business community wants?
On that last topic… St. Lucie County (actually, the whole of Florida) is about to add a massive number of families (especially children) to Medicaid. Talk about a tax liability. School Districts are no longer insuring the families of employees. The option presented is to pay approximately $17,000 for insurance or apply for Medicaid. The first option is not reasonable on a net salary of $27,000.
It is only what can be described as a phenomenon: spending goes up, results and salaries go down.
Business community, is this what you call a more efficient government?
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It’s what they call CHA-CHING!!!
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Speaking of returns, let’s returnn Arne Duncan to his posts prior to Secretary of Education.
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