Peg Robertson, one of the leading figures in the Opt Out movement, here writes movingly about her own experiences as a teacher, struggling to do her best for her students in an atmosphere dominated by corporate reform ideas.
She writes about the family that shaped her views about education.
She offers practical and wise suggestions for every teacher in the same predicament.
This is an action guide that every teacher will enjoy reading.
Read what she says, share it, and listen to her words of wisdom.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The problem I see with our pushback against CCSS/PARCC/SBAC/APPR/VAM is that we are (for understandable reasons) all over the map. This is a political battle as much as anything and we need to adopt a political style pushback that disables the reformers claim that we’re a bunch of lazy, tenure-protected, whiners. A pushback that includes a unified voice and resonates with our closest allies – parents. I’m not sure if a set of standard talking points is enough, but it could be a start. Don’t forget we have been “politically orphaned” by our unions.
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Could we even agree on a set of simple straight forward talking points?
TP#1
Private reformers are experimenting with our children using un-tested, unproven, ideas.
TP#2
Private reformers are lying to you and you know it: most of our public school are not failing; they don’t need to be fixed.
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When I realized that I was losing my pedagogy acquired over years of experience, teacher intuition, creativeness, joy of the classroom, I stopped believing in being a “leader” (puppet) promoting whatever the district ordered us to do. I don’t know how John King and those like him can sleep at night.
It’s sickening to think that our state adm/district adm accepted such proposals for funding and left us holding the bag. When we ask questions at PDs, their reply is “we don’t have answers for that right now” or we are given pat answers. It’s been over 10 yrs. and they still don’t have answers.
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I think portraits of the hostility toward good teachers and students should be documented and posted right here on this site, with regularity. There is a cult dimension to what is going on in the worst of these schools. That cult mentality has to do with cover-up and complicity in a moral wrong. Good teachers are targeted because they are not in the cult and the targeting is life-destroying. Same is being done to uncooperative parents and children. This dynamic is not about a cranky day at school. It is much more dangerous to those negatively affected and of course, it is completely destructive to democracy and the promise of public schools. There is no personal adjustment to a powerfully public pillage of all that education is supposed to be.
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Most worrisome for me here in CT, where we have strong schools and CC has yet to rear its ugly head, is that my colleagues are largely ignorant to all things CC. They don’t know about CC’s illicit origins. They don’t know CC was never piloted, was not created by education experts, that their state legislature did not vote to adopt CC, nor that there is no mechanism to fix it. They don’t know what ‘college and career ready’ means in CC speak. They don’t know that CC is many steps backwards from what CT has in place. They don’t know that little kids in NY are vomiting on and wetting themselves due to test pressure. They don’t know there is growing furor nationwide over CC. They don’t know anything! A few of us in my building have begun a dialogue about the coming storm, but the vast majority are oblivious to what is rushing straight at them. If only Diane could drop in and grab these people by the lapels and shake them into consciousness!
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I think you read Pelto and you should read Wendy Lecker, Stamford advocate. There are groups in CT trying to educate others. Maybe we can communicate off line. We are all CT parents, teachers or both.
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Sounds great Linda! Not sure how to do it, but feel free to contact me if you do.
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I can email diane for her to give me your email address or vice versa. Is that okay?
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Why would CT replace a worthy set of standards with a substandard one? That’s what NYS did and just look at the results. Hopefully, the rest of the states will benefit from the current fiasco in NY.
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Out of Hand…There should not have to be any guidelines for a Hostile Environment in the teaching profession.. Stop Now…this Testing Teaching and just start teaching. I now know of 63 more teachers who will not return for the 2nd semester..
This article .though very good advice for your younger teachers was actually discovered by the older ones…the veterans…who at one time were respected and could help the new teachers..Now the new teachers are told not to listen to anyone but the Puppet Leaders who pull the strings…
Therefore..this article is by far the Bible for these young teachers…Good Luck..So glad to be out of this mess…and do support those still in this Hostile Testing Arena…
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oops
is by far …..”The Best Bible”
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