After his fiasco in Poughkeepsie, and his hasty decision to cancel all future public forums, the New York Regents sent John King out on the road again.
His next meeting in Portchester was not the disaster of the Poughkeepsie meeting, For starters, he didn’t lecture the audience for over an hour.
He showed a certain openness to dialogue, though little evidence that anything he heard would change his mind.
He was there to convince parents and educators that he was right about Common Core and high-stakes testing, both of which he advocates.
If he had been listening, he might have backed down and showed some reflection because the audience was clearly not supportive of the Regents’ agenda.
But King and the Regent present engaged in dialogue and will now move on to the next event in the traveling road show.
Opponents of the Regents’ agenda may find that King is doing their work for them in rallying parents and educators against high-stakes testing.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The article states “The Education Department on Tuesday released results of teacher testing, showing that 91.5 percent were deemed effective or highly effective. The hope, King said, was the high scores would ease concerns about the Common Core and the evaluation process.”
So King is thinking that 91.5 percent of the teachers will say “well,it doesn’t affect me so I won’t bother complaining”. He is so wrong! Common Core and high stakes testing is not only wrong for the teachers is is wrong for the students!
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91 percent of the teachers teaching in high needs schools will not be rated effective or developing…just look at Buffalo and NYC (when they release their scores). Teachers will be loosing their jobs because students with severe learning disabilities, and those who come from low social-economic backgrounds cannot pass a test!
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hear, hear! you are so right. we have already seen posts from teachers of LD/lowSES who lose their jobs because their students don’t test as well… their kids are re-assigned to bigger classes or the teacher is replaced by a newbie/TFA… somebody upstairs in admin getting a bigger salary by denying a decent education to society’s most vulnerable: SHAME!
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This is what John King really thinks of
parents who “opt out”, or even complain
about his “education reform.”
http://www.southbronxschool.com/2013/10/fine-dining-with-new-york-state.html
King draws an asinine analogy between
parents bitching about Common Core, or
excessive or inappropriate-for-grade-level
testing or whatever…
to…
the lack of restraint to a customer
would show at a restaurant when that
customer has a problem with
the wine or food served to him:
http://www.southbronxschool.com/2013/10/fine-dining-with-new-york-state.html
He puts himself in a higher order of class
than those belly-aching parents because
when a waiter brings him substandard
food or wine… well… in such a situation,
he doesn’t complain, or send it back. He
sits there and eats it whether he likes it
or not…
(*** actual quote… no joke***)
JOHN KING: “When I’m in a restaurant,
and the waiter opens the bottle of wine for
me to taste, I never say ‘No,’ send it back,
even if it’s horrible. The same with my
meal; if I don’t like it I’ll eat it anyway.”
AND DAMN IT!!! THAT’S WHAT THE
PARENTS AND STUDENTS IN NEW
YORK STATE SHOULD DO AS WELL!!!
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After the so-called “town hall” was
over, -THIS- is how King “responded”
community concerns in a private
meeting with his advisors:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvKVkitKOgk
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I was at the Albany forum. 67 people spoke. Maybe four, at most, supported King. Of those four, one was a charter-school principal and another was a well-known local charter school supporter and well-known whack job.
The other 63 speakers were civil, but very firmly opposed to the school attack agenda (its not a “reform” agenda) of NYSED.
At least half of those who spoke were both parents and teachers. Most of the rest were either one or the other.
King showed no sign that he was listening.
On a positive note, the local Times-Union newspaper had pretty accurate coverage of the event. The local public radio, WAMC, did not. No coincidence, of course, that their executive director’s son is a charter guy.
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King claims that at the disastrous
Pougkeepsie town hall, that those
loudmouth parents who spoke out
at the town hall (in the video) were
phony agents of “special interests”
out to disrupt the event, and deny
“the real parents” an opportunity to
learn and dialogue about Common
Core and school reform. (Is King’s
thought process here the kind of
critical thinking he wants taught in
Common Core?)
A MESSAGE TO ANY OF THOSE
WHO SPOKE ON CAMERA:
Were any of you actual parents?
OR
Were you just pretending to be
parents so you could then disrupt
the town hall event on orders from
your “special interest” masters?
OR
Were you perhaps actual parents
as well as “special interest”
provocateurs out to sabotage
the event, and thus deny
the non-special interest parents
the benefits of the town hall?
Inquiring minds want to know.
And to Commissioner King…
exactly WHO are these nefarious
“special interest” puppeteers who
masterminded the destruction
of the Common Core town hall
event?
Whoever they are, they need
to be rooted out at once, and
exposed for these destructive
forces—the enemies of true
school reform—that they are!
Tell the world!
Let’s study the video once again,
so we can start the process
of identifying and exposing them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Eiz406VAs
Once those speaking on the
video are subjected to a thorough
interrogation, we can get them all
to “flip”—as they say on THE
WIRE—and give up the names of
those “special interest” bastards who
put them up behave and say what
they did at the town hall!
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The Common Corporate Standards are in reality a vehicle for ever-more testing, in every subject. King cannot sidestep that reality, so his dog and pony show is doomed to fail, even if his handlers have some success in reigning in his arrogance.
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only doomed to fail if parents opt out! otherwise the insanity continues…
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Is there anyone out there who is
a current/former teacher or parent
at the Montessori school where
King sends his kids who can
shed light on the accuracy of King’s
claim that his kids’ Montessori
school strictly adheres to
Common Core?
King makes this dubious claim at
about 17:00 on the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Eiz406VAs
I was hoping that someone had
actual information about the Montessori
school where King sends his kids.
So far, I’ve yet to find out exactly
what occurs during a typical
school day at that specific Montessori
school—schedule, curriculum,
activities, subjects taught, etc.
(without naming the school, of
course, less King try again to hide
behind his kids… “My kids are
out-of-bounds! How dare you
attack my kids!” No, no one is
attacking your children, John;
millions of NY state parents
are rightfully questioning your
choice to keep them as far
away from the questionable
curriculum and testing that
you’re demanding millions of
other NY state children must
endure.)
Thankfully, both Montessori’s
official site and its Wikipedia
page details what happens at
almost all Montessori
schools—i.e. the ones that are
functioning in a way consistent
with the Montessori educational
philosophy and methods. If
the Montessori to which King
sends his children does not
operate this way, they are an
exception, and not a true
Montessori school—sort of like
a restaurant purporting be a
McDonald’s and uses the name
McDonald’s, but instead that
sells hot dogs instead of
hamburgers.
However, I was able to discover
a blog post from Carol Burris
who DOES have information about
the Montessori school to which
King sends his kids. It’s at the
top of the COMMENTS section:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2013/06/when_the_ny_state_education_dept_complained_about_this_blog.html
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
CAROL BURRIS (regarding the
Montessori school where King
sends his kids):
“A friend whose employee attends
the Montessori School (and
therefore knows that the children
attend it) informed me that the
school does not give all of the
tests at all of the grade levels.
“Teachers are not evaluated by
the scores, nor is the school
evaluated by the scores.
“That has been confirmed.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
In the video, King described
his children’s Montessori school
being part of NY state’s
“community of schools”.
Apparently, not all of NYS’s
educational institutions
are in sync with the policies that
King demands that the public
schools follow—i.e. the
non-public school where he
sends his own children.
The article that this COMMENT
is responding to is pretty
incendiary as well. It’s from
the “FINDING COMMON
GROUND” blog, written by
elementary school principal
Peter DeWitt.
According to the webpage,
DeWitt “writes about students’
social and emotional health,
and how educators can help
young people find common
ground. He was selected as
the 2013 New York State
Outstanding Educator of the
Year by the School
Administrators Association
of New York State.”
The story is about how
officials from the N.Y. State
Education Dept. harassed
him at his school office in
response to comments he
wrote about… you guessed it…
the subject of King’s sending
his children to a Montessori
school.
The attempts to intimidate,
censor, and implicitly threaten
DeWitt are as creepy as
anything to do with the recent
Town Hall fiasco.
For example, Tom Dunn,
King’s Director of Communications,
volunteered to DeWitt…
“It’s not like I’m going to call your
superintendent … ”
… to complain about DeWitt,
should DeWitt refuse to cooperate
and do what he says—i.e. edit out
the stuff about King’s kids
attending a Montessori school.
That remark has a very mafioso-ish
type ring to it—along the lines of…
“It’s not like we’re going to go
and harm your wife and kids if
you don’t play ball with us. We
wouldn’t want anything to happen
to them, now. Would we?”
C’mon. If you’re not going to
do something, and you’re not
actually threatening to do so,
then why even bring it up?
These are the final paragraphs
of DeWitt’s article in their entirety:
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
PETER DEWITT:
“(Ed. Commissioner King’s)
communications director should
spend less time trying to coerce
and intimidate educational
bloggers who are trying to get
out the truth, and spend more
time listening to the voices of
teachers, parents, students and
principals.
“Collectively, there were thousands
of them who converged on Albany,
NY yesterday for the June 8th Rally.
I hope some leaders from State
Ed were in the crowd because
one thing is for sure…our voices
won’t be stifled. ”
“My concern over the phone call
is ‘what’s next?’ One phone call
for an error. A second one
because I used strong language
or criticized the commissioner?
“What will be the next thing I
write that State Ed does not like?
If there is something untrue about
my blog, post a comment at the
end or send an e-mail like everyone
else.
“My secretary is too busy to take
calls about my blog, nor should
she have to. I don’t post blogs at
school, and my students and staff
are my first priority. We are trying
to meet the deadline of getting
through our End of the Year SLO’s.
“Unfortunately, Mr. Dunn’s phone
call seemed less about correcting
an error (which may or may not be
true) and more about flexing his
NY State Education muscles. We
have about as much time for State
Ed phone calls as they do for
ours.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Again, you can read the whole
thing at:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2013/06/when_the_ny_state_education_dept_complained_about_this_blog.html
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King went in to send out a letter that blamed teachers for excessive testing. He also claims that 540 minutes of testing each spring is only 1% percent of a school year. He is not listening, he must resign http://rlratto.wordpress.com
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“King went in to send out a letter that blamed teachers for excessive testing.”
Because they’ve set it up so they can’t lose.
If the CC fails, it will not the be the fault of the leadership or the reform “movement”, it will be the fault of local public schools.
When Bill Gates realized that standardized testing was a problem, he wrote an op ed not acknowledging his own role in it, but instead making fun of the dumb public school yahoos in Ohio who ruined his brilliant concept.
Public schools should stop taking responsibility for outcomes without the control that comes along with responsibility.
They’ll ALWAYS lose. They’re responsible for outcomes, but they have no control over the policy. No one in their right mind would agree to that deal.
I heard it at the first meeting. Every time an objection would come up, King would simply retreat behind “that’s not how the Common Core is intended to work”. If it’s a massive failure, they’ll simply say it wasn’t done properly at the local level.
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If you listen to King at every one of these meetings, the rhetoric is the same. The Common Core is good. The modules are resources and if they are not working, they are not being used correctly (translation: teacher and district’s fault). Districts do not have to test for APPR , that is THEIR choice (translation – too much testing is district’s fault). Teachers should not be spending time on test-prep and rote learning for HST (even though their jobs depend on scores) and should be spending time on creative projects (translation: it is ALL the teachers’ fault!). This guy is a total spin doctor – the only problem is that NO ONE is buying it and he just doesn’t seem to get it. No one is buying it! And Tisch can drag the little puppet around from one show to the next – nothing is going to change until the corporate puppet learns three very important words: “I was wrong.”
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rratto, Chiara & ELynch: you have brought out an essential characteristic of many of the leading charterites/privatizers.
To judge by their words and actions over the years, they are incapable of self-correction. They seem to have taken Albert Einstein’s admonishing observation as words to live by: “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Mix this in with their profound lack of imagination and self-reflection, self-serving creativity with numbers & stats, and their seemingly unlimited faith in their own abilities, and you have such stunning mishaps as the completely preventable $1 billion [and counting] iPad fiasco in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Thank you for your comments.
🙂
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There were several town halls
scheduled to sell Common Core to
the parents of New York state
schoolchildren. N.Y. State Education
Commissioner was the presenter,
with the events organized and
presented by the N.Y. State PTA.
However, after yesterday’s first
suchtown hall, N.Y. State
Education Commissioner King
strong-armed the N.Y, State PTA
into cancelling the remaining town
halls with the following statement:
https://www.facebook.com/nyspta
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“While our goal was to provide
an opportunity to learn and share,
based on review of the initial
October 10 meeting, the
Commissioner concluded the
outcome was not constructive
for those taking the time to
attend.
“Please know that NYS PTA
will continue to work with all
education and child advocacy
partners to keep our members
updated andinformed on
education, health, safety and
welfare issues affecting children
and families.
“We apologize for any
inconvenience this may cause
and express our sincere
appreciation to those who have
given their time to assist with
organizing this initiative.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Well, you can “review” for yourself
the crucial final 20 minutes of
yesterday’s town hall here—
the colorfully titled YouTube video
“Commissioner King Gets Spanked”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Eiz406VAs
This meeting was a Rhee-like
farce where King spoke for 2
hours straight, and was scheduled
to to be followed by 1 hour of
public comments and questions.
Note that… ***was scheduled to
be followed…***
The best laid plans…
Indeed, 20 minutes in, neither
King nor the NYS PTA
moderator “could stand the
heat, so they got outta the kitchen.”
They were totally unprepared by
how well-informed and
onfrontational these parents were.
At about the 10 minute mark, one
parent brought up the fact that King
sends his own kids to a Montessori
School which has a curriculum that
is the antithesis of Common Core
as a Montessori school is…
(to quote its wikipedia entry)
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
“… characterized by an emphasis on
independence, freedom within limits,
and respect for a child’s natural
psychological, physical, and social
development….
“… and has these elements
as essential:[1][2]
” — Mixed age classrooms, with
classrooms for children aged
2½ or 3 to 6 years old by far the
most common
“— Student choice of activity
from within a prescribed range of
options
“— Uninterrupted blocks of work
time, ideally three hours
“— A Constructivist or ‘discovery’
model, where students learn
concepts from working with
materials, rather than by direct
instruction.
“Specialized educational materials
developed by Montessori and her
collaborators
“— Freedom of movement within
the classroom
” — A trained Montessori teacher
“In addition, many Montessori
schools design their programs
with reference to Montessori’s
model of human development
from her published works, and
use pedagogy, lessons, and
materials introduced in teacher
training derived from courses
presented by Montessori
during her lifetime… ”
– – – – – – – – – – – –
This disclosure and implied attack
on King pretty much ended things.
King made the dubious claim that
his Montessori school scrupulously
follows “Common Core”
“This totally enraged the audience
of parents as it was and is a
ludicrous and demonstrably false
claim that was rightly met with
skepticism and loud booing,
enraging the crowd… if for
no other reason that folks
don’t like to be lied to or have
their intelligences insulted.
The flustered moderator then
quickly wrapped it up, “We’re going
to allow two more people to speak.”
At which point people began
screaming even louder:
“WHAT HAPPENED TO ‘ONE
HOUR’ ?!!!”
This is absolutely riveting video.
Again, you can see that crucial
final 20 minutes at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Eiz406VAs
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We went through this with a reading program in Buffalo that was guaranteed to get results in the inner city. When it didn’t work the first year, the teachers were blamed for incorrectly implementing the program. Then the program was scripted so that all the teachers were doing the same thing. When this didn’t work the teachers were again blamed. Then the walk throughs were instituted where teams of administrators from downtown would show up at the school and watch individual teachers to make sure the scripted program was being implemented. This meant every teacher in a given grade was teaching the same thing, in the same way, on the same day. Schedules were posted outside the classroom door so the principles could also check on a teacher’s fidelity. Objectives had to be written on the board and repeated aloud to the class. The walk in team (of 3 to 4 plus the principal) would nit pick all the details of a given lesson. Even veteran teachers were nervous. And still, we never got the promised results.
Eventually the assistant superintendent (who had previously worked for the company) who had instituted the program was bought out of her contract, as was the superintendent who brought her on board. And now we have CC.
Is this what we have to look forward to?
I’m glad I’m retired.
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The Common Core is a scary beast – teacher evaluation aside (and that’s not a small aside) – I learned this week the following – that the ELA Common Core in NYS means that students don’t have to have ANY knowledge of ELA – not at all.
I realize Dr. Ravitch has posted a lot about the abstract nature of the Common Core – but I always assumed that the state would pick some lens to focus those skills through vis a vie content – not so.
http://www.engageny.org/common-core-assessments
“Assessments will contain knowledge-based questions about the informational text; students will not need outside knowledge to respond.”
So the test will require the students know basically nothing except identifying evidence based arguments, and using context clues – that’s a deep education.
As for the quality of teaching? Well….
Click to access common-core-shifts.pdf
“Students build knowledge of the world around TEXTS rather than the teacher or activities” – so good to know our students will have a broad range of…um…reading experiences.
Capitalizing TEXTS (I didn’t add emphasis) was a particularly nice touch.
I am scared of what our students are going to be missing from their education – I don’t think I could have come up with a much narrower or shallower view of education short of making students do nothing but memorize inane facts. Reducing things to this relatively small skill set of a much broader education (which requires experience and knowledge of other areas) – terrifies me – how is this defensible?
Surely enough, the blueprint the state released at the beginning of the month confirms the worst interpretation of these “shifts”
Click to access regela-a-1-test-blueprint-document.pdf
So students need to read lots of self contained passages, answer 24 multiple choice questions, write 2-3 paragraphs using one literary element (and teaching one literary element is a joke), and write a source based roughly 1 page paper based on 3-5 sources….
The only knowledge they need going is one literary element to use…that is NOT a high bar – they should know a dozen going in – or at least half a dozen – not ONE!
They’ve even completely eliminated the Oral portion of the Regents exam where students had to process information read to them…how is that NOT a skill worth measuring?
I hope NYS finds a way to bow out of this, this is not teaching, this is not education, this is madness and corporatism run amok.
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On another humorous note, I just found
this over at STUDENTS LAST:
————————————————
THE KING’S DICTIONARY:
New York – The reigning Commissioner of Education for the State of New York, John King, has released the following dictionary of terms that he would like distributed at any other town hall meetings he deigns to attend.
accountability — fireability, what the King is above
child — learning unit available for sale to corporations (notable exceptions include: King’s child(ren))
critical voices — that to which the King is deaf
democracy — a form of government in which people choose their leaders and their leaders choose not to listen to them because it is time-consuming and inconvenient
dissent — that to which the King is impervious
education — marketplace
educators — pawns
experience — overblown requirement for teaching
evidence — that which does not exist to support the use of Common Core Standards
knowledge — facts, information and skills not necessarily required before implementing state-wide learning standards
money — short cut around democratic process
parent — easily manipulated adult unit in charge of child (see above)
Ravitch — she who must not be named
respect — what silent acquiescence shows
rigor — developmentally inappropriate
schooled — what the King got on October 10, 2013 in Poughkeepsie, NY
special interests — those who disagree with the King’s policies
Town Hall meeting — gathering at which the King speaks and you listen
——————————————–
This is at:
http://studentslast.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-kings-dictionary.html
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So, this is a Town Hall where parents can ask questions? NOT!
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