Commissioner John King finally got a friendly forum about Common Core. At the only hearing in Brooklyn, a borough in New York City with four million residents, every speaker but one praised Common Core and many accused its critics of racism. Reports from those on the scene (directly to me) as well as in the media said that the speakers’ list consisted of people who were affiliated with Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst and charter parents. Parents who were not part of these two groups could not get a chance to speak. The list was closed.
I had heard for the previous two weeks that speakers were being trained to support the Regents and King. And they got their chance to do so last night. One estimate sent to me was that 44 people spoke enthusiastically about Common Core and only one was opposed.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
That is truely disgraceful!!! That does not represent the majority. It will back fire in their faces come June when less of us agree to let our children take this exam. Then what wiill they do? Make up some other story? They act like children themselves. Our children demonstrate a more mature attitude than they do.
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It must have been hard to find 44 people willing to do this. I hope they gave them a nice bus to ride in.
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This performance certainly gives new meaning to Shakespeare’s line, “All the world’s a stage.”
If privatizing interests stage support for Common Core, then Common Core must be the way to go. (Tongue in cheek, of course.)
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The so-called reformers clearly coordinated this, determined to not be caught flat-footed, as they have been at other forums.
They obviously also took a cue from Duncan’s “suburban white moms” meme, furthering the deceptive use of ugly racial politics to mask the hostile takeover of public education.
Just when you think these people cannot be any more despicable, …
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Look at the picture accompanying this article:
http://www.wnyc.org/story/supporters-common-core-speak-out/
This is exactly what the faux-pro-Deasy rallies in Los Angeles looked like last month—organized by the same billionaire funded astroturf groups.
These people are all astroturf dupes. How come the signs all look identical…. i..e. the circle with the diagonal slash through it over the words “low expectations”? That’s because these signs were mass produced, then passed out to these clueless folks, but made to look like they were handmade by “grass roots” parents. In lieu of tuition/coerced donations, charter school parents are allowed to offer “service hours”. Now you would think that would be say… w0orking as unpaid lunchroom monitors, or unpaid aides or crossing guards, or whatever… Well, they can also fulfill their “service hours” obligation by participating in rent-a-mobs like the one pictured above. They have no clue as to the issues at hand, and the true intent behind Common Core. Common Core sets the traditional public schools up for failure by making impossible standards.
Once the schools fail, the corporate privatizers will use that alleged “failure” as justification for charterizing and privatizing the remaining traditional public schools. True grassroots parents have caught onto this.
If Common Core is so great, they how come Commissioner John King is spending tens of thousands of dollars (of money paid to him by corporate reformers, btw) to make sure that his own children are figuratively as far away from Common Core as they possibly can be—in a Montessori school with curriculum and minimal testing that is diametrically opposed to Common Core—while at the same time, telling the millions of parents (of New York, and nationwide) that these parents and their children are going to have to accept Common Core even if King and his fellow “corporate reformers” have to forcefully shove it down their throats…. and no matter how much they protest at these sham public hearings, these parents have no power to change this.
This hypocrisy of his should be the end of the debate as to King’s lack of character.
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So there’s no dissent in charter schools on Common Core?
LOL. Real rigorous debate they’re having. Remarkably, they all agree 100% with another ed reform idea. Are charter school parents or leaders permitted to break with Rhee or Duncan, on anything? It’s odd how they’re always lockstep with the leaders.
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Let’s never forget, Chiara, that charters are “laboratories of innovation,” so of course they’d support the Standards in lockstep.
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Now we need to find the correspondence between Students First and NYSED department that proves this was set up.
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Good idea – but the NYSED machine is beyond public scrutiny thanks to Tisch and her friends funding a parallel State Ed dept. Even the press – which is finally waking up – would have trouble getting to the bottom of this travesty of democracy and public trust.
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Who were the special interests bussing in angry public school parents with the Common Core? FairTest? Opt-out? You mean those genuine grass roots group without big money backing them?
We are truly through the looking glass if parents showing up en masse without organization are special interests and organized political groups that can fund opposition and bus in people early to co-opt a meeting when it is patently obvious that there is not overwhelming support for this equates to civil rights.
Would MLK really invoke standardized testing, pro-market rhetoric, and increasing segregation (documented in charters) as being about getting equal opportunity for all children?
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“Would MLK really invoke standardized testing, pro-market rhetoric, and increasing segregation (documented in charters) as being about getting equal opportunity for all children?”
No. He would continue to say what he said back then: it’s about poverty. And he would also remind us that what hurts one of us hurts all of us. And he would be as right today as he was then.
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“I’m here to dispel the myth that children in low-income neighborhoods cannot learn”.
They say this all the time. But who really holds onto a myth that children in low-income neighborhoods cannot learn? Who has propagated this myth and who keeps it alive? Does it even exist at all or is it just a straw man argument?
The event was held at Medgar Evers College, a college named after a man who did indeed grow up in a poor neighborhood but who walked 12 miles to school to earn a HS diploma and who later earned a college degree. In addition to serving his country and providing for his family, he used his time and talent to take on the scourge of our nation. So, thinking people have known for a very long time that children in low-income neighborhoods can learn. Great men like Medgar Evers have proven it over and over again. The real problem involves an educational system that makes success so much harder for some students than others. Medgar Evers walked 12 miles to school because there was no school he was allowed to attend closer to his home. Today, neighborhood schools are closed in poor communities but children in affluent communities would never have to take two buses and a train to get to a good school.
No doubt Medgar Evers own standards for himself were much higher than any government bureaucracy could dream up. In order to make his success just as likely as the wealthy (white) students in his community, he needed the same infrastructure. And the situation remains the same today.
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Where is our Thomas Nast?
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It just means that we’re all in 100% agreement on Common Core.
Full speed ahead! God forbid anyone should should do any due diligence or hesitate in adopting anything labeled “reform” nationwide, and immediately!
It’s like the reckless and irresponsible IPad purchases, but even more urgent!
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I worked at a Gifted and Talented school in Buffalo. Although 70% of the students had to test in, the other 30% were neighborhood children. The racial component was very mixed, and the majority of the kids had free or reduced lunch. Granted, most of the neighborhood was high end, but there were also pockets of poverty throughout. Plus the entrance exam was based on creativity and problem solving skills, not spitting out facts. Everyone had an equal opportunity of success.
And given an environment where learning was valued and where most parents were involved in their children’s education, the majority of students thrived. And continue to do so, not due to family income or background (many did not have that advantage), but because their ability was recognized and nurtured.
My point – poverty does not have to equal failure. An opportunity to succeed is the key.
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No doubt the application and selection process screened out the more difficult kids, though. Lately we have seen a number of charters and other schools implying that they are “miracle” schools because they get good results with poor kids, when in fact all they are doing is creaming the best outliers among the poor kids and showcasing their success.
I agree that “poverty is not destiny”, but that concept gets cleverly twisted into “poverty shouldn’t be considered a factor in outcomes when judging teachers and schools”.
Imagine if we judged doctors based on the percentage of their patients who died every year, and then neglected to factor in the populations they worked with. Oncologists and trauma specialists might be a little upset, and they would be MORE upset when their concerns were met with a smug smile and the trotting out of a few people who had survived “so-called terminal” injuries and cancers to be used as “proof” that “trauma and cancer are not destiny”.
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Is anyone surprised that they stacked the audience? They had to do it eventually to combat the grassroots message. I don’t think King and the Regents had a clue that this Common Core Tour of theirs would be so ill-received by the masses, at first. They needed time to examine the situation and find a way to counter-act it. The best way to fight your enemy is to know it first. Now that they know it, they’ll play politics with groups that support their agenda in order to save their public image. Time to organize protests at every event.
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In more news, King sees NO special interests in the Brooklyn forum – it’s 100% grassroots! Studentsfirst claims to think they stacked the audience is racism!
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2013/12/8537291/ed-chief-sees-no-special-interests-supportive-crowd
What reality are we living in….
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Working with gifted kids isn’t all fun and games. The brightest ended up going to City Honors – an intense curriculum. Our atmosphere was more family oriented, trying to bring out the best in each child. The kids that couldn’t handle the pressure of City Honors came back to Olmsted.
You had to get accepted or tested into the Olmsted High School. The troublemakers were weeded out. The kids accepted in K were guaranteed a spot through eighth grade. Very few were expelled, usually for violence, never academics.
And not everyone was on grade level. We even had a special ed classes at each grade level – some low functioning. We also had a bunch of students with asperger syndrome. Plus, gifted kids aren’t necessarily gifted in all subjects.
With genius also comes oddities. Gifted kids can be a handful. Sometimes they are brilliant, but refuse to do any of the school work. They are too busy involved with whatever concept they choose to explore.
The one plus, was that there was an atmosphere of learning. Smart kids are often mocked in an urban setting, but at Olmsted it was cool. You were like everybody else. By setting this standard, the others towed the line so the teacher could teach. But you had to know your stuff – incompetence yielded chaos. They could spot any weakness and capitalize on it.
And the kids were not street kids. They didn’t smoke or do drugs like in the suburbs. (There were some sexual interludes, but not too many). They were nice kids. (Sometimes a little bit know-it-all, sometimes a wise ass, but never threatening with a knife or gun). This is the city, you know.
I was blessed to have worked there. I still correspond (by Facebook) with many of my former students. And they continue to amaze me.
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Oh – and many of them lived in poverty. And the population was diverse. It wasn’t an all white school. Actually, white was a minority. The valedictorian was black. There are a lot of smart minority students in the inner city and it was pleasure to work with them.
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