Archives for the year of: 2013
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Julian Vasquez Heilig: Why School Choice Is NOT the Civil Rights Issue of Our Time

By dianeravitch
December 2, 2013 //
6

Proponents of the market-based approach to schooling often say that school choice is “the civil rights issue of our time.” We have heard this refrain from sources as diverse as Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal, and Arne Duncan.

But scholar Julian Vasquez Heilig refutes this idea.

Read the entire article, which as always from Heilig, is brilliant.

We know what works, he writes, based on research and experience over many years. Here is what works:

  • Curriculum that represent diverse populations (Vasquez Heilig, Brown & Brown, 2012).
  • An accountability system that doesn’t stigmatize students who score poorly on only one measure of success— high-stakes tests (Vasquez Heilig, Young & Williams, 2012).
  • An accountability system that doesn’t hide students who fall through the cracks while simultaneously claiming fantastic results (Vasquez Heilig, 2011a)
  • An accountability system that recognizes the unique needs of English Language Learners relative to high-stakes testing (Vasquez Heilig, 2011b).
    • Teachers that have more than five weeks of training (Vasquez Heilig & Jez 2010).
    • Teachers that have more than 30 hours of “alternative certification” training (Vasquez Heilig, Cole & Springel, 2011).
    • Schools that don’t have a 40% attrition rate for their African American students (Vasquez Heilig, Williams, McNeil & Lee, 2011).
    • Schools that have vibrant public arts programs (Vasquez Heilig, Cole & Aguilar, 2010).
    • Schools that have low student-teacher ratios (Vasquez Heilig, Williams & Jez, 2010).
    • Schools that don’t have to cheat and game the system to make their numbers for NCLB (Vasquez Heilig & Darling-Hammond, 2008)
    • Districts and schools that actively seek to desegregate schools (Richards, Stroub, Vasquez Heilig, & Volonnino, 2012).
    • Schools that utilize innovative disciplinary approaches to stem the school-to-prison-pipeline (Cole & Vasquez Heilig, 2011).
    • Schools that have teachers in every classroom who are teaching in field and have extensive training in classroom management, curriculum development and pedagogy (Darling-Hammond, Holtzman, Gatlin, & Vasquez Heilig, 2005).

Here is the conclusion:

This essay demonstrates that school choice is a civil rights issue, but not as currently framed. First, school choice, on average, does not produce the equity and social justice that proponents spin (Wells, Slayton, & Scott, 2002). Second, school choice has created a motely alliance between privatizers and traditional civil rights proponents that is not in the best interest of poor and minority students (Wells, Lopez, Scott & Holme, 1999). Scott (2013b) posited,

Can we imagine Martin Luther King, Jr., A. Philip Randolph, Ella Baker, or Rosa Parks marching on Washington to secure the right for parents to compete in lotteries for spaces in free-market schools? Rather than these figures, the managers of such reforms in fact seem to be emulating another iconic cultural figure: Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning libertarian economist whose 1962 best-selling book was entitled “Free to Choose.”

Moving our schools from the public sector to the private sector is a false choice. Instead, as the research concisely demonstrates, parents and students should be able to choose a neighborhood public school with the important characteristics that are already established in the research literature and consistently observed in wealthy high-performing public and private schools. Access to those choices in democratically-controlled neighborhood public schools is the civil rights issue of our time— large-scale privatization of education is not.

This article appears in the Texas Education Review, the new student run journal at the University of Texas at Austin. Retrieve the pdf of this article here. See the entire issue here.

Citation: Vasquez Heilig, J. (2013). Reframing the refrain: Choice as a Civil Rights issue. Texas Education Review.1(1), 83-94.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Privatization, Vouchers

Tom Loveless: Why Shanghai Leads the World on International Tests Like PISA

By dianeravitch
December 2, 2013 //
42

Tom Loveless, a scholar at the Brookings Institution, has spent many years analyzing testing data. He is active in the study of international testing.

He has deciphered the secrets of Shanghai’s remarkably high test scores.

For one thing, China as a whole does not take the PISA test. Shanghai is a city, not the nation. It is a huge city, to be sure, but it is not typical of the nation. Other provinces take PISA, but China has an unusual arrangement with the OECD (which administers the tests) by which the Chinese government is allowed to review the test scores and decide which provinces will release their scores.

Loveless writes:

How dissimilar is Shanghai to the rest of China?  Shanghai’s population of 23-24 million people makes it about 1.7 percent of China’s estimated 1.35 billion people.  Shanghai is a Province-level municipality and has historically attracted the nation’s elites.  About 84 percent of Shanghai high school graduates go to college, compared to 24 percent nationally. Shanghai’s per capita GDP is more than twice that of China as a whole.  And Shanghai’s parents invest heavily in their children’s education outside of school.  According to deputy principal and director of the International Division at Peking University High School, Jiang Xuegin:

 Shanghai parents will annually spend on average of 6,000 yuan on English and math tutors and 9,600 yuan on weekend activities, such as tennis and piano. During the high school years, annual tutoring costs shoot up to 30,000 yuan and the cost of activities doubles to 19,200 yuan.

The typical Chinese worker cannot afford such vast sums.  Consider this: at the high school level, the total expenses for tutoring and weekend activities in Shanghai exceed what the average Chinese worker makes in a year (about 42,000 yuan or $6,861).

Further, Shanghai does not allow the children of migrants to attend its high schools.

The hukou system prevents children of migrants–numbering at least 500,000 by the government’s own count and probably many more than that–from attending Shanghai’s high schools.  Many are forced back to rural villages to attend school.  

Categories International, Testing

“PISA Day”: Don’t Believe Arne Duncan’s Orchestrated Hype and Spin

By dianeravitch
December 2, 2013 //
36

On Tuesday, the results of the international test called PISA will be released.

Years ago, no one paid much attention to the release of international test scores, but now they have become an occasion for official moaning, groaning, and hyperventilating. It is time to remember the story about “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” Will we hear more declarations that the latest results are “our Sputnik moment”? Will we hear more predictions that our economy is headed for disaster because some other nation has higher test scores? You can count on it.

Richard Rothstein and Martin Carnoy write here that the U.S. Department of Education released early copies of the PISA results only to organizations that can be counted on to echo the Obama administration’s official line that American schools are failing and declining and unable to compete in the global competition.

They write:

Typically, The U.S. Department of Education (ED) is given an advance look at test score data by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and issues press releases with conclusions based on its preliminary review of the results. The OECD itself also provides a publicized interpretation of the results. This year, ED and the OECD are planning a highly orchestrated event, “PISA Day,” to manipulate coverage of this release.

It is usual practice for research organizations (and in some cases, the government) to provide advance copies of their reports to objective journalists. That way, journalists have an opportunity to review the data and can write about them in a more informed fashion. Sometimes, journalists are permitted to share this embargoed information with diverse experts who can help the journalists understand possibly alternative interpretations.

In this case, however, the OECD and ED have instead given their PISA report to selected advocacy groups that can be counted on, for the most part, to echo official interpretations and participate as a chorus in the official release.1 These are groups whose interpretation of the data has typically been aligned with that of the OECD and ED—that American schools are in decline and that international test scores portend an economic disaster for the United States, unless the school reform programs favored by the administration are followed.

The Department’s co-optation of these organizations in its official release is not an attempt to inform but rather to manipulate public opinion. Those with different interpretations of international test scores will see the reports only after the headlines have become history.

Which organizations got early copies of the PISA data? The organizations who have been provided with advance copies of this government report, and that are participating in the public release are: The Alliance for Excellent Education, Achieve, ACT, America Achieves, the Asia Society, the Business Roundtable, the Council of Chief State School Officers, the College Board, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, and the National Center on Education and the Economy. These organizations and their leaders have a history of bemoaning Americans’ performance on international tests and predicting tragic consequences for the nation that will follow.

Rothstein and Carnoy remind us that thirty years ago a federal government report called “A Nation at Risk” warned of our dire peril, and that report has since been proven wrong:

Advocates participating in Tuesday’s staged PISA Day release include several who, a quarter century ago, warned that America’s inadequate education system and workforce skills imperiled our competitiveness and future. Their warnings were followed by a substantial acceleration of American productivity growth in the mid-1990s, and by an American economy whose growth rate surpassed the growth rates of countries that were alleged to have better prepared and more highly skilled workers.

Today, threats to the nation’s future prosperity come much less from flaws in our education system than from insufficiently stimulative fiscal policies which tolerate excessive unemployment, wasting much of the education our young people have acquired; an outdated infrastructure: regulatory and tax policies that reward speculation more than productivity; an over-extended military; declining public investment in research and innovation; a wasteful and inefficient health care system; and the fact that typical workers and their families, no matter how well educated, do not share in the fruits of productivity growth as they once did. The best education system we can imagine can’t succeed if we ignore these other problems.

We don’t plan to comment on tomorrow’s release, except to caution that any conclusions drawn quickly from such complex data should not be relied upon. We urge commentators to await our and other careful analyses of the new PISA results before accepting the headline-generating assertions by government officials and their allies upon the release of the national summary report.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if some of these organizations asked the obvious question: Why does the United States continue to thrive and prosper even though our scores on international tests are not at the top? Why was “A Nation at Risk” so terribly wrong in its predictions of doom and gloom to come if we didn’t raise those international test scores?

– See more at: http://www.epi.org/blog/pisa-day-ideological-hyperventilated-exercise/#sthash.mlTQYkwp.dpuf

Categories International, Testing

New York Times: Readers Respond to Frank Bruni

By dianeravitch
December 2, 2013 //
21

Frank Bruni argued a week ago in his column in the New York Times that American students are too “coddled” and need the Common Core and rigorous testing to toughen them up. He also suggested that some parts of schooling ought to be “relatively mirthless.” Today the newspaper printed letters to the editor, in response.

Tony Wagner of Harvard University wrote:

To the Editor:

Re “Are Kids Too Coddled?,” by Frank Bruni (column, Nov. 24):

The problem with Common Core is not coddled kids; it is high-stakes testing. And the anxiety that kids feel is not from their parents but rather from their teachers, who fear for their jobs.

We can have high academic standards without high anxiety. In Finland, which is the best performing education system in the world, the first high-stakes test that kids take is the high school matriculation exam, which they have between two and four years to prepare for — their choice — and can retake if they are not satisfied with the results. Kids are assessed continuously in class, and get feedback that urges them to do better, but it is not high stakes. Grades are played down.

If we want Common Core to succeed, we have to dial back the high-stakes testing, and test only sample populations every few years. Otherwise, what we are going to get is just more teaching to the test, squeezing out of the curriculum everything that is not on the test and undoing whatever value Common Core may have.

TONY WAGNER
Cambridge, Mass., Nov. 24, 2013

The writer is a fellow at the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard and the author of “The Global Achievement Gap.”

Other letters were also excellent, including one from a “white suburban mom,” who says that implementation of Common Core in New York has been “an unmitigated disaster,” and another from a high school English teacher, who writes, “A fourth grader who can’t participate in music, art or recess because she now attends a remedial class as a result of a low score on a standardized test aligned to the Common Core can tell you all about “mirthless.”

Categories Education Reform

American Girl Doll Comes with Backpack Including Pearson Math Book!

By dianeravitch
December 1, 2013 //
53

Play once meant play.

Now it means a marketing opportunity for publishing giant Pearson.

As blogger Chris Cerrone discovered and Valerie Strauss reported, the popular (and very pricey) American Girl brand has released a new doll that has a little Pearson math book in her backpack.

Surely, the workbook is aligned with Common Core!

Categories Pearson

Raginghorse Blog: How Coddled Are Opinion Writers for New York Times?

By dianeravitch
December 1, 2013 //
25

The blogger called Raginghorse has noticed some important facts about the opinion writers in the New York Times:

Several have written glowing articles about the Common Core standards.

None offers any evidence that they have read the standards.

All report what the press releases say about the standards.

Most ridicule their critics as extremists and pay no attention to parents or teachers, who arguably know more about the standards than writers for the Times who are unfamiliar with the standards.

None seems to have undertaken any research into the issues.

In short, their opinions are shallow and uninformed.

One might reasonably say that pontificating without research or knowledge indicates the musings of the coddled.

Categories Common Core

When Does Schooling Become Psychological Abuse?

By dianeravitch
December 1, 2013 //
49

In response to an earlier article by psychologists and social workers about abusive tactics in certain schools in Texas, this parent wrote the following comment:

 

Quote from the above article: ” During the same 30 years when A.D.H.D. diagnoses increased, American childhood drastically changed. Even at the grade-school level, kids now have more homework, less recess and a lot less unstructured free time to relax and play.”

In my children’s school, the principal thinks ADHD meds are “steroids for the brain” and has a standard recommendation for all parents whose children can’t sit still for 8 hours of drill each day. Last year, when my 7 year old son could not sit still in 2nd grade for two days of four hour STAAR test practice, it was recommended that I take him to the doctor and say that he could not “focus” on his schoolwork. All the doctor did was write out one sentence stating an ADHD diagnosis and a script for meds. The doctor seemed to be under the influence of the school? I decided it was not my son that needed changing, it was the school! I changed both my son and daughter to a private school this year, even though we cannot afford it. What is happening in elementary schools of Texas is abusive. I’m glad it is finally being called what it is:

Mental and Physical cruelty for children is psychological abuse!

Categories Students, Texas

Parent: Free Our Children from the Dead Hand of Testing

By dianeravitch
December 1, 2013 //
30

Jeff Nichols and his wife Anne Stone are outspoken critics of standardized testing. They have two children in public school. Here is Jeff’s testimony to the Néw York City Council, in which he eloquently explains why the tide is turning against standardized testing. He speaks on behalf of the values of humane education, creativity, diversity, originality, individuality–now almost forgotten in this new age of uniformity and standardization.

Testimony in support of City Council Resolution 1394-2012
Jeff Nichols
Change the Stakes
November 25, 2013

Thank you Councilman Jackson for this opportunity to testify in favor of Resolution 1394. My wife, Anne Stone and I have two young children, Aaron and Gabriel, in fifth and fourth grades respectively. We belong to Change the Stakes, a group of parents and educators with no budget, no hierarchy, which anyone can join, a group of citizens united by outrage over the astonishing direction education has taken in recent years.

In an era of economic scarcity, we are wasting billions of dollars on the futile search for an illusory accountability system that will finally allow us to quantify the relationship between a teacher and a child. Think about that for a minute. Is there a more complex structure in the universe than the human brain? And we’re talking about interactions between two of them. We want a single score or rating to explain how one affects the other. It is beyond my comprehension, but this search is the driving force in national education policy today, despite the fact that not only teachers and parents in ever-increasing numbers, but testing and assessment experts as well decry this practice – not because any of us thinks our children shouldn’t be challenged by difficult tasks in school, or that the performance of teachers in the classroom should not be judged by the highest standards, but because there is no scientific validity whatsoever to the use of these tests as the primary instrument for evaluating children and teachers. We cannot kid ourselves that just because high-stakes testing has become predominant in our schools, it is moral or even rational. Societies go astray just as individuals do. The greatness of the United States is not that we are immune from committing profound social wrongs, but that our system of government allows us to right them.

The tide is turning against the abuse of standardized testing. Now city education officials say they agree with us that test-driven education is wrong, but their hands are tied by state officials, who in turn say they are compelled by federal law. This passing of the buck has to stop. In the United States, we do not accept “I was just following orders” as an excuse for violations of basic rights, like that of our children to a public education based on best practices of the profession. When the state tries to compel educational malpractice, it is the right of citizens to civilly disobey. My wife and I have boycotted standardized tests since they stole our then-third grader’s love of school from him two years ago. We and our fellow parents and teachers at Change the Stakes ask that our local leaders refuse to follow misguidance from above and fulfill their obligation to meet the educational needs of their constituents’ children. Resolution 1394 is a great step in that direction. But we want more — much more. New York City is universally recognized as a major cultural and economic center. Let us also become known as world leaders in education, not just rejecting wrong policies, but promoting true innovation in the classroom by allowing public school teachers the same intellectual freedom that teachers enjoy in the exclusive private schools most of our political leaders send their children to. As the great education scholar Yong Zhao has argued, if we need everybody to be creative, entrepreneurial, globally competent, we need a new paradigm. It would seek not to reduce human diversity through pervasive testing and standardized curricula, but to expand human diversity through the values of progressive education. As he says, “America cannot afford to catch up to others, we must lead the way, be the first to take on so-called progressive education not as something nice to do, but as an economic necessity.” And the central value of progressive education is the empowerment of the individual mind, be it of teacher or child — its liberation from arbitrary and constrictive external mandates.

Today the best our highest education authorities can do to justify their policies is to drone on endlessly about “college and career readiness.” To them I ask, what about citizenship readiness? How are teachers supposed to convey to their students what it means to be members of a democratic society when they are denied any meaningful say in curricula or teaching methods, when the terms of their employment include the equivalent of loyalty oaths, threats of termination if they fail to promote and prepare kids for the endless testing?

Teachers should instill democratic values in children by participating themselves in the governance of our schools, in which they, along with parents and concerned members of the local community, have real power.

And teachers should instill critical and creative thinking by modeling the same in the projects, assignments, and curricula they design. They cannot do that if their job description is to spew Common Core scripts.

We ask the City Council to exercise its powers to place educators in charge of education again, backing teachers and parents as we retake control of our schools and free them of the destructive influence of those who view public education not as the foundation of our democracy but as an investment opportunity.

And I have a message for our new mayor: the teachers of this city know exactly what our children need. They should not have to compete with anyone for your attention. We voted for you over opponents promoting the so-called education reform agenda because we expect you to restore the authority of teachers over their own classrooms, because they, and only they, are the professionals who know and understand our children’s educational needs. They should have your undivided attention as you craft your education policies; only one other group should be on a par with them: parents.

jeff.william.nichols@gmail.com

What’s New From CTS

—
Jeff Nichols
Associate Professor
Queens College and The Graduate Center, CUNY

Categories Parents, Testing

Your Holiday Gift of Humor: Please Read and Enjoy!

By dianeravitch
December 1, 2013 //
8

Russ Walsh prepared this reform dictionary or field guide with pictures and definitions and source materials.

He calls it “The Seven Blind Mice of Reform.”

There is a word for this sort of antiquarian dictionary but after a Thanksgiving meal, I can’t think of it.

Read and enjoy!

Categories Humor

This Blog’s All-Time Most Popular Post, By Far!

By dianeravitch
December 1, 2013 //
34

Here it is, the most popular post ever posted on this blog.

It is called “NC Teacher: I Quit!”

When I posted it on October 27, 2012, it recorded more than 66,000 page views on one day. In aggregate, it has been opened on this site alone by more than 250,000 people.

It was written by Kris Neilsen. He wrote a book recently called Children of the Core and Uncommon: The Grassroots Movement to Save Our Children and Their Schools.

Here is the most popular post ever on this blog, not by me, but by Kris Neilsen, explaining why he could not teach in North Carolina anymore. Not that it helps, but be it noted that the Legislature in North Carolina has continued its attack on the teachers of that state since Kris announced he was quitting.

 

A letter from a disgusted teacher:

I QUIT

Kris L. Nielsen
Monroe, NC 28110

Union County Public Schools
Human Resources Department
400 North Church Street
Monroe, NC 28112

October 25, 2012

To All it May Concern:

I’m doing something I thought I would never do—something that will make me a statistic and a caricature of the times. Some will support me, some will shake their heads and smirk condescendingly—and others will try to convince me that I’m part of the problem. Perhaps they’re right, but I don’t think so. All I know is that I’ve hit a wall, and in order to preserve my sanity, my family, and the forward movement of our lives, I have no other choice.

Before I go too much into my choice, I must say that I have the advantages and disadvantages of differentiated experience under my belt. I have seen the other side, where the grass was greener, and I unknowingly jumped the fence to where the foliage is either so tangled and dense that I can’t make sense of it, or the grass is wilted and dying (with no true custodian of its health). Are you lost? I’m talking about public K-12 education in North Carolina. I’m talking about my history as a successful teacher and leader in two states before moving here out of desperation.

In New Mexico, I led a team of underpaid teachers who were passionate about their jobs and who did amazing things. We were happy because our students were well-behaved, our community was supportive, and our jobs afforded us the luxuries of time, respect, and visionary leadership. Our district was huge, but we got things done because we were a team. I moved to Oregon because I was offered a fantastic job with a higher salary, a great math program, and superior benefits for my family. Again, I was given the autonomy I dreamed of, and I used it to find new and risky ways to introduce technology into the math curriculum. My peers looked forward to learning from me, the community gave me a lot of money to get my projects off the ground, and my students were amazing.

Then, the bottom fell out. I don’t know who to blame for the budget crisis in Oregon, but I know it decimated the educational coffers. I lost my job only due to my lack of seniority. I was devastated. My students and their parents were angry and sad. I told myself I would hang in there, find a temporary job, and wait for the recall. Neither the temporary job nor the recall happened. I tried very hard to keep my family in Oregon—applying for jobs in every district, college, private school, and even Toys R Us. Nothing happened after over 300 applications and 2 interviews.

The Internet told me that the West Coast was not hiring teachers anymore, but the East Coast was the go-to place. Charlotte, North Carolina couldn’t keep up with the demand! I applied with three schools, got three phone interviews, and was even hired over the phone. My very supportive and adventurous family and I packed quickly and moved across the country, just so I could keep teaching.

I had come from two very successful and fun teaching jobs to a new state where everything was different. During my orientation, I noticed immediately that these people weren’t happy to see us; they were much more interested in making sure we knew their rules. It was a one-hour lecture about what happens when teachers mess up. I had a bad feeling about teaching here from the start; but, we were here and we had to make the best of it.

Union County seemed to be the answer to all of my problems. The rumors and the press made it sound like UCPS was the place to be progressive, risky, and happy. So I transferred from CMS to UCPS. They made me feel more welcome, but it was still a mistake to come here.

Let me cut to the chase: I quit. I am resigning my position as a teacher in the state of North Carolina—permanently. I am quitting without notice (taking advantage of the “at will” employment policies of this state). I am quitting without remorse and without second thoughts. I quit. I quit. I quit!

Why?

Because…

I refuse to be led by a top-down hierarchy that is completely detached from the classrooms for which it is supposed to be responsible.

I will not spend another day under the expectations that I prepare every student for the increasing numbers of meaningless tests.

I refuse to be an unpaid administrator of field tests that take advantage of children for the sake of profit.

I will not spend another day wishing I had some time to plan my fantastic lessons because administration comes up with new and inventive ways to steal that time, under the guise of PLC meetings or whatever. I’ve seen successful PLC development. It doesn’t look like this.

I will not spend another day wondering what menial, administrative task I will hear that I forgot to do next. I’m far enough behind in my own work.

I will not spend another day wondering how I can have classes that are full inclusion, and where 50% of my students have IEPs, yet I’m given no support.

I will not spend another day in a district where my coworkers are both on autopilot and in survival mode. Misery loves company, but I will not be that company.

I refuse to subject students to every ridiculous standardized test that the state and/or district thinks is important. I refuse to have my higher-level and deep thinking lessons disrupted by meaningless assessments (like the EXPLORE test) that do little more than increase stress among children and teachers, and attempt to guide young adolescents into narrow choices.

I totally object and refuse to have my performance as an educator rely on “Standard 6.” It is unfair, biased, and does not reflect anything about the teaching practices of proven educators.

I refuse to hear again that it’s more important that I serve as a test administrator than a leader of my peers.

I refuse to watch my students being treated like prisoners. There are other ways. It’s a shame that we don’t have the vision to seek out those alternatives.

I refuse to watch my coworkers being treated like untrustworthy slackers through the overbearing policies of this state, although they are the hardest working and most overloaded people I know.

I refuse to watch my family struggle financially as I work in a job to which I have invested 6 long years of my life in preparation. I have a graduate degree and a track record of strong success, yet I’m paid less than many two-year degree holders. And forget benefits—they are effectively nonexistent for teachers in North Carolina.

I refuse to watch my district’s leadership tell us about the bad news and horrific changes coming towards us, then watch them shrug incompetently, and then tell us to work harder.

I refuse to listen to our highly regarded superintendent telling us that the charter school movement is at our doorstep (with a soon-to-be-elected governor in full support) and tell us not to worry about it, because we are applying for a grant from Race to the Top. There is no consistency here; there is no leadership here.

I refuse to watch my students slouch under the weight of a system that expects them to perform well on EOG tests, which do not measure their abilities other than memorization and application and therefore do not measure their readiness for the next grade level—much less life, career, or college.

I’m tired of watching my students produce amazing things, which show their true understanding of 21st century skills, only to see their looks of disappointment when they don’t meet the arbitrary expectations of low-level state and district tests that do not assess their skills.

I refuse to hear any more about how important it is to differentiate our instruction as we prepare our kids for tests that are anything but differentiated. This negates our hard work and makes us look bad.

I am tired of hearing about the miracles my peers are expected to perform, and watching the districts do next to nothing to support or develop them. I haven’t seen real professional development in either district since I got here. The development sessions I have seen are sloppy, shallow, and have no real means of evaluation or accountability.

I’m tired of my increasing and troublesome physical symptoms that come from all this frustration, stress, and sadness.

Finally, I’m tired of watching parents being tricked into believing that their children are being prepared for the complex world ahead, especially since their children’s teachers are being cowed into meeting expectations and standards that are not conducive to their children’s futures.

I’m truly angry that parents put so much stress, fear, and anticipation into their kids’ heads in preparation for the EOG tests and the new MSLs—neither of which are consequential to their future needs. As a parent of a high school student in Union County, I’m dismayed at the education that my child receives, as her teachers frantically prepare her for more tests. My toddler will not attend a North Carolina public school. I will do whatever it takes to keep that from happening.

I quit because I’m tired being part of the problem. It’s killing me and it’s not doing anyone else any good. Farewell.

CC: Dr. Mary Ellis

Dr. June Atkinson

 

Categories Education Reform
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