In a story in Huffington Post today, former NYC Deputy Chancellor Eric Nadelstern complained that New York City’s new Chancellor Carmen Farina has not spelled out exactly how she plans to raise the graduation rate or solve every other problem that the Bloomberg administration, in which Nadelstern served, left unsolved.
Farina’s appointment was also met with a mixture of concern, skepticism, and guarded hope by Nina Rees, president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Rees worried about de Blasio’s lack of enthusiasm for charter schools, but she took hope from the fact that Farina had worked for Joel Klein.
Rees said:
“It’s interesting that she was the pick given that supposedly she was aligned with [Bloomberg schools chief] Joel Klein for so long,” said Nina Rees, president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. “She has a different approach to testing and accountability, but the fact that she was with the previous administration and had overseen a number of layoffs and substantial changes is a positive sign in terms of not completely abandoning some of the reforms the previous administration had in place.”
It is not clear why Rees thought that Farina had laid anyone off, since she was in charge of curriculum ad instruction, not human resources or budgets.
Rees worked in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney during the George W. Bush administration, and subsequently for Michael Milken before taking charge of the charter school operation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Nadelstern said the following in the Capital NY story:
“I don’t think the chancellor should come and nitpick their way through the system, saying ‘I like this’ or ‘I don’t like that,’” said Nadelstern.
“I think the first 100 days needs to be about putting together the most talented team they can possibly find and then working with that team to develop a long range plan on how to to go from a 66 percent graduation rate to a 100 percent rate in five years,” he said.
How’s that for laying down an impossible marker?
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2013/12/8537832/carmen-farintildea-head-doe
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Gosh, why didn’t Nadelstern and Shael get a 100% graduation rate? They had complete control via the mayor, and the mayor had 12 years to get the job done.
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“NYC Schools Chancellor Pick Carmen Fariña Leaves More Questions Than Answers”
All of a sudden Joy Resmovits is questioning the talking points of the NYC Mayor on education issues. Interesting.
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Diane I reviewed a number of comments here and I have to be honest. Carmen Farina is about the children. She comes up through the ranks. The NYC Leadership Academy promotes fairly new teachers and staff with less than five years of teaching experience to lead many of our schools. This was the biggest mistake ever. When we truly examine education a teacher with less than five years of experience who attends a couple of professional development courses and leadership courses in graduate school does not represent the true school leader. The true school leader was and still is in the trenches. The school leader who has had a career with a variety of positions can do a better job at supporting our schools, students, communities, community stakeholders and parents. So the internal path is teacher, assistant principal, principal and then superintendent. Carmen Farina is an excellent choice.
As far as the charter school situation. Interesting bedfellows sit within the New York State Department of Education. Friends of friends including corporate organizations are running many of the charter schools. Interesting enough the charter school network used the “Waiting for “Superman” movie to push their agenda.
Parents are not as involved as they should be because if they were they would have never allowed charter school organizations in their neighborhoods. The Bloomberg administration closed more than 100 schools in poor neighborhoods. Directly after they closed the public schools his administration gave charter schools the permission to do co-location. Rather than build the community up it is being torn down. Parents who live on the same block many have tension and frustration.The best of it all was to create a division within communities. Schools have to give up common space. If Eva Moskowitz can make over $400,000 then her circle of schools can pay rent. If parents have to pay for the same services many will see that charter schools offer nothing different. The illusion is great yet that’s all it is.
Charter Schools depend on data and donors, This is how they exist. Students are silenced and in many cases corpal punishment is used in a number of charter schools. The focus is discipline. If students act right and behave then they can master their studies academically. Because a student can test really well does not mean they will master a content area. Rote learning is all charter schools use. Memory is great yet the logical skills are not there. Critical thinking skills are left out as well. Charter Schools don’t want ELL or ESL students and they dislike SPED students.
Because their services do not support the IEP of special education students they will have students sitting in general education classes and students will not get the services mandated by the IEP. Yet charter schools claim they are open to all!
There is no study that proves that charter schools do extremely better than public schools. Place the Little Red School House in the Village against four of the top charter schools in the city and the Little Red School House presents excellence,
Sad after parents place their children in charter school environments they still have to come back to public school high schools because there are not enough charter school high schools in the city.
Parents need to wake up. Do the research of the board of directors, the school organizations and look at what they represent. Are they investing in stocks? Do any of the donor organizations belong to right wing politics? What is the track record? Charter Schools have parents participating in a lottery and if the education they are providing is open to everyone why should parents go through a lottery? Well as I always say keep waiting for superman!
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Well said and so very true! The head of the largest school system should be an educator. I’m glad I voted for Bill DiBlasio and I’m thrilled he appointed Carmen Farina to this position.
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They closed several schools in Buffalo – always the ones with the least resistance.
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What an irrelevant fool Eric Nadelstern was and is!
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We all are vested in the results of New York City’s schools. Success or failure could influence the reactions of states throughout the country.
We are asking a lot of one person, but at least let her take off her coat before we start bombasting her with complaints. Shame on you Rees. Welcome Farina.
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Right? What has it been 20 hours, she had 20 hours to enjoy the appointment? Sour Grapes for Rees.
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And Nadelstern, stop acting like a bully.
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“but the fact that she was with the previous administration and had overseen a number of layoffs and substantial changes is a positive sign”
What a weird thing to say. Why would “layoffs” be positive? It’s as if “disruption” is itself a goal, no matter if it’s negative, positive, whatever.
Oh, wait a minute, scratch that, except when it’s disruption that dislodges an ed reformer. Then she wants the status quo of the last decade, I guess.
Someone should tell her “change is hard” 🙂
That’s the ed reform slogan, is it not?
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Chiara, I think that Nina Rees let slip what she believes. Anyone who fires teachers and other public personnel is admirable, that is, is a “reformer.” Reformers like to break up public schools and demoralize teachers, unless they are TFA.
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Bloomturds current grad rate is completely bogus. Lower it approximately 20 percent in certain schools, and you’ll be close to the reality.
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Farina seems like a very modest and fair woman whom I welcome to the position. She openly fought to block my childs charter school from existance which is very worrysome. However, I am hopeful that she is an honest person who will see the success that charters like ours have created and work to support them instead of close them. Charters like ours are changing peoples lives and the results can not be ignored. I am confident that Farina will not be a political stooge who follows dblazes special interest promises and supports families choice….
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MS, many charter schools are worse than the local neighborhood public school. Happy that you found a good one. De Blasio has said he is not closing charters. But he plans to pay more attention to the schools that educate 94% of the children instead of the charters that enroll only 6%.
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Yet he will attempt to force my charter to pay rent not for any logical reason, but because it can ‘afford it’ in his view. Nice. PS29 where Mrs Farina taught for 22 years raises $1,000,000.oo USD annually via its PTA but dblaze has not targetted them for rent, why not? They can ‘afford it’! PS 58 which neigbhors 29 receives over 1MM USD from the French Government to run a dual french program that French expats living in the city get priority to enter even if they do not live in the local district. Is this fair? The French government cna afford rent too, but no one claims they should pay it despite their ‘special status’. We define this as a double standard.
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PS 29 is a public school. Your charter, run by a private board of directors, able to exclude kids with disabilities and English learners, is not a public school. That is why PS 29 does not pay rent for its building, but your charter should pay rent if it moves into PS 29 and takes away ten of its classrooms.
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You have it wrong, SA is a public school by law and by charter and can not deny ELL or special needs learners. It cant take room from PS29 becuase the school si one of the most desirable schools in the city and real estate prices in Cobble Hill are at 20% premiums for it. Interesting though, PS29 like 58 and 321 also in BK are majority white with big balance sheets from their hedge fund parents yet seem to escape the ‘rich city poor city’ narative of our new mayor. Yet Success Academy whos students are overwhelmingly poor and minority with no PTA is the evil empire of corporate educational doom. Quite the double standard you have painted yourself into.
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The principals at PS58 and 321 are not paid $475,000 like Eva Moskowitz. And they would be fired if they closed their schools for a political march across the Brooklyn Bridge. Because they work for a public school and she does not.
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Yet they would be rewarded with greater salaries and defined pensions and healthcare they do not pay for if they went on strike and shut the school system down for weeks on end. You support this as well, legally holding an entire school system hostage for profit demands. Yet students learning to exercise their constitutional 1st Amendment rights is a big no no! Another blatant example of hypocracy.
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MS, I think you have flipped your lid. Public schools are not allowed to go on strike, and the chancellors overt he past 16 years would not allow a day of school to be missed to speak out about educational policy (in fact the NYPD has stopped allowing teachers to rally in mass). As for profit schools, you work for the cash cow. I think you might simply be trolling, if not the brainwashing is insane.
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It is futile to attempt intelligent discussion with someone who has drunk the kool-aid and keeps repeating the same old mantra that the law says charters can take public money so they must be public! (Haliburton takes public money, too–does that make it a public entity?) The law is flawed and needs to be amended. Charters claim to be public or private depending on what is convenient for the situation or who is asking.
When someone conveniently ignores dialogue that addresses the issue of how charters do not educate the entire public like true public schools, gets angry or plays the race card without admitting her own bigotry toward other people’s children (problems), and accuses “white” people of abandoning non-whites while she insults the children of neighborhood schools as “the problems” that were eliminated for her family by sending her child to a charter, the hypocrisy runs rampant.
Now the response will be one of the above actions or a complete deflection of the issue including a flag-waving statement of how a charter school CEO deserves a salary near half a million dollars for excluding other people’s children in order to “save” hers from those nasty kids while (get this) suffering “discrimination” because her school, WHICH DOES NOT SERVE EVERY CHILD, has to pay rent for its exclusive operation.
This is like complaining that a country club has to pay taxes.
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John, you seem to be wearing rose colored glasses. The Taylor Law which makes it illegal to strike has been in place since 1966 yet did not stop UTA walkouts in 1990 and 1999. It also did not stop the FDNY or NYPD multiple times in the 1970s. Teachers went on strike in Chicago in 2012. This is all acceptable behaviour though, you dont seem to take issue with it.
You are also incorrect about for-profit, Success Academy is a non profit entity, it is against federal law for them to make a profit or they would lose their tax exempt status. They are heavily audited and their tax returns available to the public. Had you taken time to actually educate yourself about the school you would not make such obtuse claims on this forum.
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MS, I went on strike in the Buffalo Public Schools in 2000. It was an illegal act according to the Taylor Law. The head of our teacher’s union was arrested and spent time in jail. We were fined two days pay for very day we were on strike.
Teacher’s in NYS don’t go on strike unless the situation is drastic. In the 70’s teachers in Buffalo went on strike so that elementary students could have music, art, gym, and library (all non mandated services).
It’s not a fun experience. I don’t recommend it, but it is a way to make our voices heard. Most of the time we are ignored. Grievances go on for years. Buffalo hasn’t had a contract since the strike in 2000.
Striking is a last resort. Please don’t belittle teachers who have made this difficult decision. There were unpleasant repercussions, but I would do it again, if necessary, for the good of all concerned.
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They are all worried about their cash cow that they have created by stealing public education (within the law) funds and giving them to corporations who then donate large sums to their offices. The money SHOULD GO TO THE SCHOOLS TO LOWER CLASS SIZE!
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And MS, when the dollars and student population are equal, the results will be equal.
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Interesting given the success academy charter receives $6,500 les in per pupil funding yet blows away ever single city school state wide in results. Imagine how well they would do if they got equal funding from the state.
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What percentage of children with severe & profound disabilities attend your charter school? What percentage of children with mild to moderate disabilities, including children with serious emotional & behavioral disabilities attend your charter school? What is your charter school’s suspension rate compared to city schools?
If the percentages are equivalent to city schools, than congratulations. If not, you are an exclusive school and comparison to public schools is not justified.
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Jcgrim, you might add: what is the attrition rate of teachers?
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Six and half grand less in per pupil funding, eh? Maybe Moskowitz will have to cut out the quarter mil she paid for a P.R. firm for her schools. Although I’m sure hiring the P.R. firm was for the good of the kids.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/eva-moskowitz-success-academy-charter-schools-disproportionate-share-state-education-money-article-1.1101668
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And lastly why did Success Academy sue to stop the comptroller’s office from auditing it? Surely it was to stop him from discovering how underfunded the schools are…..right?
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The rates of enrollment of special needs children are roughly the same. Unfortunately the charters lost a battle with fedreal officals that forced them to stop setting aside seats for ELL learners in their lotteries or lose millions in funding. You can read about it here:
http://gothamschools.org/2013/09/05/facing-federal-funding-freeze-success-to-nix-lottery-preference/
This charter set aside 20% of its seats for ELL students, more then dobule the city average, and the federal government made them stop. Why would the government stop a charter from servicing so many children with special needs?
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The comptrollers audit was nothing more then a political witchhunt to bankrupt the charter, that is why they sued. SA already gets audited and reviewed by the Board of Regents. THey also have to submit financial statements to the Board of Ed. They also have their tax returns open to the general public. WHy does the comptroller need to run a special audit on one specific school when he can get the information he requires from other agencies? Becuase its a witchhunt. The guy called for the audit at a UTA press conference for christ sake. THe good news is he does not have the constitutional authority to waste hard earned taxpayer dollars on political attacks to gain favor with his union special interests. His audit has no merit.
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I would love to see more of the statistics about the ELL’s and the IEP’s of the Success Academy. But back to the original point about funding, why is Success Academy getting $15 million in grants from the Feds? And how can they continue to claim they get less funding…. As for the NYS Regents and all the other public filing of numbers, I have yet to see a report that analyzes them. While I would agree Success Academy has teachers that work very hard, the test craziness of the Academy is not the way education should be. As for cohabitation of public schools, this is very wrong on my opinion. Success Academy should have their own buildings that they purchase on their own since they are private not public education schools.
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Nadelstern should be the go-to guy for anyone seeking a record of abject failure. Otherwise, he should find a job more suited to his particular talents. I wouldn’t buy a used car from him, but there are a lot of other options for a guy like that.
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Interesting indeed MS. How many special education students and year 1 ELL’s does the Success Academy take. As for funds, your statistics are GROSSLY wrong. If you count the money private corporations and private donors give your academies the funding is far greater. Please stop the nonsense, the kids that the Success Academy take are the “easier” self motivated type that has a family that is pushing them to do better.
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Let the sniping begin, plain and simple. It’s about time there be some hardcore, solid confrontation. Imagine: there will be more than one type of voice heard from now on.
No matter how much you name drop, this ultimately is about good old fashioned class warfare.
Their money outnumbers our money.
But our population outnumbers theirs . . . . . .
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We must rise above all the crap and let it stand alone for what it is. Focus on a plan that takes kids from where they are, at their best pace, without calling them stupid of failures. Make failure a learning experince just as in life and bring back the joy of learning. Perhaps a listen to a CD I produced will open some eyes. http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/dhbdrake4
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im so glad that we have a new NYC Schools Chancellor some one who has been there for our kids all of them for me i can’t wait to see the change bloomberg had 12 long years to change and it did more harm than good i support Carmen Farina
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The idea of her laying off teachers may have come up because 80% of the teachers were removed in a school that she controlled to bring up reading scores. This is a bit frightening. Staff development is the way to go. The increase in reading scores was so extreme that I find it hard to believe. Would like to learn more about that situation. All administrators are suspect under Bloomberg and Giuliani to save their skin. New teachers take time to develop such ability, if at all. There may be some skeleton’s in her closet. Looks like Bill was grasping until the last minute for a choice. We saw his communications director already go down in flames. I would have preferred someone without the baggage of experience under the previous paradigm.
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Joseph, I agree that the story about basically re staffing almost the entire school is disconcerting, but we don’t have all the details. I am going to reserve judgement.
That was then, this is now. Let’s wait and see how she handles this mess before we start complaining.
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This was from the NY Times………. “At P.S. 6, Ms. Fariña turned a school once ranked as 76th on a citywide reading test to fourth. Her strategy included replacing 80 percent of the staff — a difficult task, given tenure protections for teachers. “Once you create a climate in a building that is hard-working, people will find out whether they are comfortable with it or not,” she explained in 1999. “And then they have decisions to make.”
and
“In 1988, the school ranked 76th among public elementary schools on the citywide reading test. In 1997, it had risen to fourth, with 91.8 percent of students reading at grade level. (The top three schools were Mott Hall and Lab Lower Schools, both gifted schools in Manhattan, and P.S. 196 in Forest Hills, Queens.) Last year 93.4 percent of the students read at grade level (the city has not yet calculated how it compares with other schools).”
I believe that the testing system changed in those years, as I recall as a teacher then, to a norm referenced system, that could be massaged by the State for political reasons. We used to have wonderful tests from McGraw Hill where we could look at raw scores to see which students went up and who went down. My classes always went up 7%, which is probably the best for a single year with real evaluation in literacy development. From what I am reading, not sure I would have been happy there. Toughness does not bring up test scores, as we have already seen with the two previous administrations.
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Almost sounds like a backhanded compliment, or an attempt to plant a seed of doubt. A “yeah…she’s probably okay, because she worked for so long with people who strive to dismantle public schools and sell them off for scrap and profit…bet she’s made no indication of how she’ll specifically help us keep doing more of that.
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I think we have to agree not to, necessarily, hold it against leaders what they thought ten years ago. This is a process. We tried NCLB and it did not work. The key is finding people who want to preserve the public aspect of public school and work to create a new path (not one of punitive testing and closing schools). If a leader takes ownership in what might have been a mis-step at the time, then we can move forward. But the “well I saw her sitting with her at lunch” and “she went out with him” and “she’s not in our clique,” when it comes to leadership, is just juvenile. And it’s counterproductive.
What matters most is now and where we are going from here.
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It will be a long, hard road.
Mike
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I’m glad NYC has a public official who will work for public schools, but I hope she spends some time and effort pushing back a bit against the reform status quo on promoting public schools that succeed.
I’m just an observer, but I have to say I hear nothing positive about public schools, ever. Listening to national media and reform politicians and state actors, one would think every public school in the country was a huge failure churning out millions of unemployable people.
My husband and I joke that our two grown children must be some bizarre statistical blip because they both attended public schools yet they both have good jobs. According to the US Secretary of Education and Mayor Bloomberg, they’re all but unemployable illiterates 🙂
This mantra of “failed and failing schools” that has been repeated for more than a decade has done some real damage.
It isn’t true. Someone who is on the public payroll and supposedly working “for” public schools should occasionally promote public schools, because we all know charter schools are spending millions on PR and advertising.
I caught the end of an interview with Duncan on CNN and his example of a school success was (of course) a charter. It’s a huge country. He could find ONE school that he deems a success and it’s a charter? How is this “agnostic”? It’s not. It’s promotion.
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If Nadelstern really expects a significantly improved graduation rate in NYC (or any other city/small city school district in the state) he should stop wasting his breath where he knows it will do no good.
Graduation rates in NY will never improve significantly until the Board of Regents/John King are pressured to relax the impossible standards in place for IEP and ELL students.
In 1995, former commissioner Richard Mills, initiated a policy that eliminated “local diplomas”, and instead mandated a Regents diplomas for virtually every student in the state, including those with severe learning disabilities. Additional academic safety nets were since removed as well for these populations, making graduation for many just a pipe dream. Now, with CCSS aligned Regents exams in math and ELA on the way, expect those graduation rates to decline even more. Special education in NY should be a scandalous issue because of this.
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And that’s the way it happened.
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It is said that the high stakes testing is a problem, which is true, but a bigger drag on the system are the publishing companies and the use of their questionable materials. Reading levels on text books have dropped over the years with many illustrations appearing to replace text.
Writing has all but disappeared and you can go to many schools where no children’s work is on display. It is replaced by “happy” or “self help” posters or sterile text from the standards to impress visiting administrators.
Fine children’s authors have disappeared, now anyone can write a “children’s” book. The breath of excellent titles have diminished and been replaced by blockbuster promotions, rather than word of mouth, quality. Teachers are discouraged and quit within five years as they are enslaved to the agenda of publishers handouts being on the test, and never have a chance to be creative. This is much heavy lifting and needs a visionary with new ideas, a “lobbyist” for children and teachers, where non exist in the system.
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Sniping = defensive = threatened = worried = fearful
They know the first big domino has fallen.
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We need to all participate in this transition. Speak clearly and honestly. We must expect sniping from those that are threatened $$, but at the same time hold the Chancellor accountable. We have seen the free ride that our President is receiving from his party. We can not sink to that. I think Bill would agree to that. We are now coming together as a community of learners with respect.
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We do not need charter schools. We need equity in funding, class size and the resources to deal with children with special needs, language, poverty, etc. My school’s budget has been slashed too often and too much since the little emperor took over the DOE. For the first time in 12 years, it feels amazingly awesome to be a teacher in NYC! Goodbye King Bloomie! Your reign of terror is over! The people have spoken! Welcome Carmen Farina!
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There is no mention of years of experience as a teacher in the classroom and which subject and grade level. At this crucial time with early education and the Common Core debacle and InBloom for the elementary grades, the new chancellor indicates that she will be focusing on middle school? Teachers will be required to read her book of the month club choice, (along with their own choices for reading?)
Not sure where we are going with this, confining teachers choices in literacy this way, to promote publishers choices? No vision so far. Not hearing great things from the union yet about their experience with the new chancellor. Outgoing “Chancellor” Walcott calls her a great choice.
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My principal regularly assigns a book to read. We then have study groups to discuss. What’s wrong with that? It’s called professional development. Middle school is a very challenging and difficult time. Most elementary schools have it together. I agree with Carden Farina’s decision to focus on middle school.
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I have seen teachers obliged to read books to students that are chosen by the district. The sad part is that teachers can not be trusted to bring in their own books that they love. Teachers should have their own stake in literacy development. Publishers have great commercial power over administrators, and teachers are obliged to read books that they just have no taste for. This undermines their autonomy. It also creates a narrowing of the market for authentic children’s literature. Staff development should be done in the context of seeing that children are participating in a full range of literacy activities such as shared reading, silent sustained reading, literacy through cooperative learning, authentic materials from libraries for non fiction, a real writing process, etc.
This is why a good administrator should have a strong background in the classroom. Having a book of the month, from waiting publishers, is time that could be spent more usefully encouraging teachers to embrace their own energy and excitement about literacy development. The new Chancellor and Mayor need to take a stand on the Common Core, albeit they have no direct power, except for the bully pulpit. Otherwise, all may be lost, and the book of the month will be good fodder for the press, like Mayor LaGuardia reading the cartoons during the newspaper strike, in the absence of real action. The final dumbing down of both teachers and children has already begun by the same publishers.
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We had a Book of the Month in addition to what we brought into the classroom. but when our budget was slashed to bare bone, money was no longer available for that. it was a fun, school-wide activity.
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Fair enough, did the teachers sit down and choose which books would be available, as they would for accepting a new textbook or new curriculum materials? Teachers used to do this you know, and not accept everything from administrators and publishers.
What was the size of the sample? Could teachers bring in their own books for consideration?
My point is that parents on this sight are complaining about the nightmare of their early childhood learners being given hours of nonsense and developmentally inappropriate homework with the Common Core and that no one is in charge. We have a new Chancellor with no policy, but “book of the month”. Bill was denied his choice for Chancellor, I suspect by Mr. Clinton, to placate Arnie Duncan and Obama so he can wheel out his wife for the next election. We are so hopeful with the next Chancellor, but no one seemed be capable of vetting her and Bill chose her by default in the final hour. Hope springs eternal .
I do not underestimate the leadership of Bill DeBlasio who is a great guy. I know him personally. He wrote a letter supporting me when I was fired as a teacher, when I realized that my school was built on a toxic site and was waiting for an air quality report. He was the “only one” who stepped forward and supported me. I was in Queens and he was in Brooklyn. My criticism is strictly constructive. I had been an adjunct at Queens College Graduate School in Literacy Studies and a 5th grade teacher.
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Yes we did select books. Yes we do have a say in curriculum in our school in spite of CCS. And I know what teachers “used to do” as this is my 36th year of teaching.
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Joseph, it is hard to react when we don’t have all the details.
As a librarian, I don’t have a problem with some common reading choices, especially if they are classic literature the children would not normally choose on their own. I even think that a school wide selection might be exciting, especially if it leads to interesting and varied activities. I also agree with your other options. It should not be an either/or list, but one of many choices. Although free reading is the best way to encourage reading, sometimes readers do get caught in a rut. It’s important as educators that we expose them to all sorts of genres. I think that a monthly book club should be optional.
It sounds like you, as have so many of us who contribute to this blog, have been hurt by the mechanizations of the system. It is hard to buck the status quo. Yet, we have stood up for what is right, even if it meant a change in jobs. In a way, you might call us the champions. Would you do it differently? Kept your mouth shut to keep your job? I don’t think so. Neither would I. So pat yourself on the back for me and keep plugging away as we all help Diane reach out so the public can hear what’s really happening in education.
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Great Lynda, Not seeing that in other schools. I am particularly concerned about new teachers and the pressures that they are seeing, there are teachers not taking maternity leave to protect their seniority. I have seen the Common Core materials and the rush of teachers to Xerox them, much of it questionable and confusing. I saw one four page handout on the Iroquois Indians with a passage on the Invisible Hand of Adam Smith and his economic theories, and not at grade level reading. There are crazy people assembling the new curriculum. With your experience you must see how dumbed downed the text books have become, even the common core theorists recognize this.
With all of your experience, what are your concerns as an enlightened teacher?
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Joseph – the common core reading lists are mismatched, outdated, and just plain wrong. The original list was a sample which was then adopted without input from specialists (such as reading teachers and librarians). Many of the items listed were articles from magazines which are not available and out of print books.
Making a nationwide list of suggested reading is a monumental task, but this list cannot even be called an attempt. It’s an embarrassment.
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Ellen
Your care and compassion stand out. I would love to be in your library with children looking for interesting authentic literature. I see the work books from Common Core to be brief and dull passages requiring multiple choice context clues. Basically, this is test prep throughout the year. Children bring home reading passages with multiple choice questions for homework for the school year, when we used to use these materials on the last months of the school year for testing. I am at liberty to challenge these things because I was privileged to experience real literacy development and to sit at the feet of experts from around the world. I am also concerned about teachers and children and administrators who have not had this opportunity, lacking the excitement and interest for learning. That world is one of power,content, standards and control, not one of process and enlightenment.
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Joseph – Those reading packets are so boring – I wouldn’t even call them reading.
By the time I was in 7th grade, I could read anything. The reading program consisted of boring reading passages and multiple choice questions (color coded by reading level). It was torture (and I loved to read). I think it was called the SRA program.
I hate to inflict this type of reading on our youth.
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I had a nephew who was in such a program. At the time he was a very bright student in Connecticut, but his reading scores did not fit with his IQ. He was put on a program like yours at a time when he would be developing literacy skills. He is now is unable to read.
I believe that the program may have interfered with his window of opportunity to develop reading skills. This is the power of commercial reading programs.
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Joseph – that is a sad story.
Some children seem to be natural readers – they’ll learn with any method. Others need direct instruction (often boys). The best way to teach difficult learners is through special one on one or small group programs. I participated in one where in a week the child advanced several months. It was amazing. (Orton Gillingham).
Canned programs won’t do it.
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Many academics do not believe that their is a disease called “dyslexia”. I tend to agree. Recent theories now attribute reading problem and some ADHD to problem with the eyes called visual convergence. It’s nerve damage that affects the visual system. Only the best optometrist can detect it (if they bother to look for it) It’s estimated that 10% of the population has it. Kids never realize that they have it, but begin acting up when they can not participate in class, and become a problem. I suspect that it can be caused by environmental toxins. It’s like “asthma” of the eyes. I developed it as an adult while teaching in my school, which is unheard of, I suspect, due to toxic exposure in my school. I discovered that they had turned off the vapor intrusion system to the building, built on a site of chlorinated solvents.
Can never prove these things, but kids do live in a more toxic environment. Just excluding kids who have the condition from reading tests might raise the reading scores by 10%. I wonder if kids have the same problem in Finland?
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I don’t know if this is what you are referring to, but we were desperate to help my young son with his inability to learn how to read (and we tried everything). So we took him to Erie,PA where we found an Irlen Specialist who created a colored lens which we had placed in a pair of glasses for him to use. The theory is that many children don’t respond to black and white and that colored overlays can help with the reading process. He wore them for about four years. Eventually he learned to read with the Wilson technique. His symptoms correspond with a diagnosis of dyslexia,. It is easier to have a label than to wave your hands in despair. I always wondered, though, because at two he could read all the labels on our VCR tapes. He even recognized the same videos that were handwritten at a friends house. I was so sure he was going to be an early reader, then nothing. Visual convergence is something to consider.
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This woman is too old for her job. Im sorry but at age 70 you should not be working a job this relevant, you should be retired enjoying your golden years. You can be relevant and advise, but a job like this is simply too much for someone of this age. You can not trust someone this old in a job of this importance.
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The closer I get to 70, the younger it seems. People can be productive (or UNproductive) at any age. Sometimes we reach our peak after 55, not before – just ask Grandma Moses and Mother Teresa.
I suppose you also feel that younger TFAs are better teachers than us old ones with our AARP cards. I heard colonoscopies dull the brain.
Let me know when you enter assisted living. I’ll come tooling by in my Corvette (maybe by age 70 I’ll be able to afford one).
Just wondering if you’d say the same about a 70 year old man – like Reagan?
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Absolutely, Reagan was a disgrace (long before he was 70), the guy could barely walk strait his last year in office. He use to give speaches and repeat entire paragraphs over. Sorry, but 70 is too old for public office, your decision making abilities become inebriated at that age. I love HIllary but do not think I can support her for President for this very reason. Sorry, 70 is retirement time, go play shuffle board in Boca, not ideal time to running a major public office like education.
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