The blog has had a few posts about Vivian Connell (see here and here and here,) who left teaching in North Carolina to go to law school; graduated with honors, then learned she had ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and only a few years to live.
Vivian has returned to teaching and decided that she wanted to make her time count. She started a fund to take a class of 32 children to the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in D.C.
Vivian was trying to raise $20,000. She met her goal and then some. Thanks to all who sent a gift to this wonderful project.
I received the following email from Vivian:
Diane,
We made it and then some!
An angel donor funded the balance of all the basics, and we are receiving a couple of thousand more that we will put toward “treats” – perhaps souvenirs, ice cream and T-shirts?
Moreover, I received an unbelievable honor today: as a result of this project and all of the publicity, a local donor/supporter of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum contacted the director, and she has invited me to be her guest next week at the museum’s events to commemorate the Day of Remembrance. I am just gobsmacked.
I owe you so much-your blog started it all, and every article quoted your kind words.
I can’t wait to welcome you to Raleigh next year for NPE2015, and I plan to make more waves for our causes before then!
Mercedes Schneider continues in her task to determine who wrote the Common Core State Standards. The first work group had 24 members; the second had 101. Very few in either group were teachers. The standards were produced in remarkably short order. Typically, it takes years to write state standards when major stakeholders are part of the process. So was ther. Secret 24? A secret 101? Or, as some think, a secret 60? Many unanswered questions, but one fact stands out: very few classroom teachers were involved in writing the nation’s presumed academic standards.
Someday we will have the answers to all these questions.
But for now, we will have to rest content with the likelihood that the national standards were written with large input GotMichal the testing industry, and small input fro working teachers.
For what it is worth, I think the CCSS are dying the slow death of a thousand cuts. This sad denouement illustrates the necessity of transparency, inclusion, and a democratic process. Just becauseBill Gates and a handful of other powerful people want national standards is not enough to put them over. What they lack is legitimacy. And that is a big problem.
The charter sector is riddled with fraud. The fraud gets uncovered whenever you see a charter claiming a miraculous success with poor, inner-city kids who are identical to the kids in the neighboring failing public schools. When they boast of their 100% graduation rates or their 100% passing rates on state tests, look behind the curtain.
Watch a master at work as Bruce Baker pulls back the curtain on Newark’s awesome North Star Academy. 100% of the seniors graduate! (But half the kids drop out before senior year.) 100% of the students pass the state tests! (But North Star has remarkably few students with disabilities or English language learners, compared to the neighborhood schools.)
Schools like North Star are so bleeping awesome that they have their very own “graduate” schools of education, where they learn to be driven by data and how to “teach like a champion.” Really cool “graduate” schools with no researchers or scholars. Just charter teachers giving masters’ degrees to other charter teachers. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. What will they think of next?
It wasn’t because the methodology has no evidence behind it.
It wasn’t because the method has been questioned by theNational Academy of Education, the American Educational Research Association, the American Statistical Association, and leading scholars.
No, Washington State said no to our omnipotent, omniscient Secretary of Education because of those terrible unions who are afraid of being evaluated.
Or could this explain NPR’s rationale:
“So, as I was sitting at the kitchen table this evening, my ears perked up at the 5:30 break for WNYC, the NPR outlet here in the greater New York area. The announcer let us know that All Things Considered was proudly sponsored by the Walton Family Foundation, which was supporting (I’m paraphrasing here) educational “choice” for families.”
Sarah Darer Littman is a journalist in Connecticut who writes frequently about education. She is a public school parent. She wrote this post in response to an email sent to all public school parents by the superintendent of schools in Greenwich:
“When I was growing up, my parents had Dorothy Law Nolte’s poem Children Learn What They Live hanging in the wall in our house.
A few lines:
If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
If children live with fairness, they learn justice.
If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.
“Last year, when Greenwich Superintendent William McKersie proposed to implement the SBAC field tests for juniors smack in the middle of AP’s, SAT’s and Junior Prom, my then junior daughter commented, “That’s just disrespectful.”
“I agreed. As wrote I in a blog post at the time, “Teenagers are human beings. They are not data points.” Furthermore, “as adults, we should be modeling balance for our kids, not cruelty and insanity. The rate of suicide for the 15-24 age group has nearly tripled since 1960. Is it any wonder when the State Board of Ed treats our already stressed out teens like lab rats instead of human beings?”
“Parental uproar forced Superintendent McKersie to back down in less than 24 hours last year.
“Apparently, that has driven him to take stronger, less truthful measures.
“On Thursday, I received the following email:
“I received this email just as I was leaving to meet with my Congressman, Jim Himes, (D-CT4) to discuss education policy issues. Congressman Himes said he wanted to understand why edreform has become so polarizing. At the end of our meeting, in which I showed him data and research about how many claims of charter “success” are actually misrepresentations, I showed him this letter and explained that when public figures are disingenuous and condescending to parents and students, it tends to make people angry – even “white suburban moms,” who might have previously been active participants of the Democratic base.
“Upon returning home, Thursday afternoon, I sent this email to all the members of the Greenwich Board of Education:
“Dear Members of the Greenwich Board of Education,
“I would like to draw your attention to the underlined phrases in Superintendent McKersie’s email, which was sent to parents of Greenwich Public School students earlier today. I assume you are aware of this memo. Are you also aware that the information Supt. McKersie gave out to parents is patently untrue?
“Let me be crystal clear: There is NO legal provision to prevent parents from opting out of the SBAC field tests. If you would like confirmation of this, please watch the video below, in which State Board of Education Chairman Allen Taylor confirmed this point.
“I question why the superintendent, who is being paid with our taxpayer dollars, is lying to parents, and my question to you is: Did the Greenwich Board of Education condone this dissemination of false information?
“On Saturday afternoon, I received this reply from Barbara O’Neill, the Chairwomen of Greenwich Board of Education:
“Perhaps the most distressing part of this was a report to the Board of Ed Thursday night by GHS Student Body President, Guillermo Perez, about a student meeting at the high school.
“We had a mass meeting today that got pretty heated. The juniors are not happy that they have to take SBAC. We’re trying to stay really positive, but they do get slammed with a lot of tests this year –- the SAT, the ACT and this SBAC field test is definitely not something they’re a fan of.
“But we’re trying to stay positive. We know it’s not necessarily the best of situations, but we did explain to them that unfortunately there is no opt out.
“It’s sort of a responsibility to the grades that come after you. Just because it doesn’t count for you doesn’t mean for them it won’t count. We want to gather this data. We want to see how does this test really affect us. How do we teach to the test, so that we can really show the state and everyone else what we’ve got.”
“So now the Powers That Be have students misleading other students. I feel like I’m living the Dystopian unit Mrs Price taught us in 10th grade honors English.
“I know Guillermo – he’s a bright young man and not someone who would purposely mislead his fellow students. So I emailed him, making clear I was writing in “journalist” rather than “Mom” mode, to ask him where he obtained the information on the opt-out.
“As for the SBAC testing, in a lunch meeting that student government’s Excomm had with Dr. McKersie and Dr. Winters, he made it very clear that there wouldn’t be an opt out. The decision comes from above them and it was communicated to us.”
“Last December, recognizing the growing strength of the opt-out movement, CT State Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor sent out a memo to Superintendents giving them instructions to dissuade parents from opting out.
“But when confronted in a hearing in March, State Board of Ed Chairman Allen Taylor admitted there was no state law preventing parents from opting out their children.
“Why are public officials modeling to our children that being disingenuous is acceptable? I don’t lie to my kids. I don’t expect the Superintendent of schools and the principal of their school to lie to them either – or to persuade another student to do it.
” Children learn what they live. I worry about what the purveyors of our current education policy are teaching them. “
School officials in Elwood, Néw York, canceled a kindergarten play scheduled for May 14-15 because it would take time away from getting the little tykes “college-and-career ready.”
Washington Post journalist Valerie Strauss called the school for confirmation. It sounded too crazy to be true.
But it is factual. The interim principal sent a letter to parents of children in kindergarten canceling the annual show. The letter said, in part, “The reason for eliminating the Kindergarten show is simple. We are responsible for preparing children for college and career with valuable lifelong skills and know that we can best do that by having them become strong readers, writers, coworkers and problem solvers.”
A member of the district staff vouched for the letter’s authenticity.
This is nuts. Blame Duncan. Blame Obama. They know nothing about child development. Their poll-tested policies hurt little children. Their policies have no basis in research. Children need time to play. They need time to socialize. Five-year-olds should be allowed a childhood.
Anthony Cody points out that for the past dozen years or so, Bill Gates has had his fun experimenting with education reform. Obsessed as he is with measurement and data, he imagined that he could impose his narrow ideas on American public schools and bring about a magical transformation.
Does American education need reform and improvement? Absolutely. Stuck as it is in the paradigm of testing and punishment, it sorely needs a revival of humanism and attention to the needs of children, families, and communities. It needs teachers who are well-prepared. It needs a recommitment o the health and happiness of children and to a deeper love of learning.
Yet Gates used HS vast wealth to steer national policy to the dry and loveless task of higher scores on tests of dubious value.
He wanted charter schools, and Arne Duncan, his faithful liege, demanded more charter schools,even if it was central to the Republican agenda.
He wanted national standards and quite willingly paid out over $2 billion to prove that one man could create the nation’s academic standards by buying off almost every group that mattered.
He wanted teachers to be evaluated based on test scores, and Ducan gave that to him too.
But says Cody, everything failed.
Cody writes:
.
“Last September Bill Gates said,
“It would be great if our education stuff worked, but that we won’t know for probably a decade.”
But, says Cody,
“I think we already know enough to declare the experiment a failure.
Value Added is a disaster. Any “reformer” who continues to support giving significant weight to such unreliable indicators should lose any credibility.
“Charter schools are, as a sector, not better than public schools, and are expanding segregation, and increasing inequality.
“The Common Core and the high stakes accountability system in which it is embedded is on its way to the graveyard of grand ideas.
“The only question remaining is how long Gates and his employees and proxies will remain wedded to their ideas, and continue to push them through their sponsored advocacy, even when these policies have been proven to be ill-founded and unworkable.
“Part of the problem with market-driven reform is that when you introduce the opportunity to make money off something like education, you unleash a feedback loop. Companies like the virtual charter chain K12 Inc can make tremendous profits, which they can use to buy off politicians, given our Supreme Court’s “Corporations are people and money is speech” philosophy. There are no systemic brakes on this train. The only way turn this around is for people to organize in large enough numbers, and act together in ways that actively disrupt and derail the operation.
“Along those lines, activists in Seattle are organizing a demonstration on June 26th, protesting the Gates Foundation at their headquarters. It has been a year and a half since I engaged the Gates Foundation in dialogue. Given the rather poor aptitude for learning Gates and company have shown, I will be joining this protest, and perhaps if enough of us are there, we can take the dialogue to the next level.”
“WATCH OUT FOR TEACHERS: Harvard professor Paul E. Peterson is out with a new book urging Americans not to be lulled into thinking of teachers as regular folk. On the contrary, he writes in “Teachers versus the Public,” they’re part of a large and powerful special interest group — and their interests often diverge from the public’s. “We tend to think of teachers as sort of like our second cousins or our neighbors and not as another group that has its own interests as an occupation,” Peterson told Morning Education. His book, co-written with Michael Henderson and Martin R. West, is crammed with poll data showing that teachers are far less likely than the public to support reform strategies such as banning tenure or introducing merit pay. They’re also far less likely to back school choice options such as vouchers and charter schools. The group Teach Plus has found that younger teachers are more likely to back reforms than veterans, but Peterson has not seen such a split in years of polling. “Their results are flatly wrong,” he said.
— The book’s findings will be aired at a forum Tuesday featuring former New Jersey Education Commissioner Chris Cerf and the incoming president of the National Education Association, Lily Eskelsen Garcia, among others. The noon event will be aired live on the Hoover Institution’s Facebook page: http://on.fb.me/1tKLNG2”
Imagine that! Teachers are opposed to vouchers! They don’t think they should abandon due process rights!
Please note that the book was written by professors who have not just due process, but LIFETIME tenure. I have no idea what Paul Peterson’s salary is, but I am willing to bet that it is at least TRIPLE the salary of the average teacher. His junior authors undoubtedly also have lifetime tenure and are paid more than teachers while carrying a burdensome nine hours a week of teaching.
Peterson of Harvard is one of the nation’s academic proponents of vouchers.
After reading in the New York Times about how many gazillions the Walton family has given to create charter schools (and vouchers) so that poor children can escape from failing public schools, EduShyster was deeply moved by their charitable impulses. And then she thought about their parents, the ones who work for Walmart.
She writes:
“Tough love
“I will stop briefly for a moment, reader, to allow you to reach for a fresh hanky (or to freshen your drink), such is the heart-warming nature of this particular tale. Alas, here is where our story takes a detour into darker, less feel-good fare. You see, if the Walheart throbs with love for low-income kids, it beats somewhat less enthusiastically for their low-income parents, especially those who are low-income by virtue of working at Walmart. Take Washington, DC, for example, where nearly every aspect of the city’s choice-infused school system comes stamped with a *W.* One choice that’s not on offer in the District: living wage jobs at big-box stores including Walmart. Or consider Walmart’s response after workers at stores across the country walked off the job to protest crap wages and benefits and a work culture that might best be described as tough love. (Hint: Walmart didn’t hug the workers.)
“The Tell Tale Heart (and a quick Common Core math problem)
“That sound you hear in the background, reader, is an organ—albeit not one of the ventricular variety. I’m talking old school, Vincent Price-style organ music of the kind that plays just before some dark and dirty business is carried out. In other words, this is where we pause to contemplate a heart-wrenching paradox: how is it possible that the great big lovin’ Walheart pounds for the sake of preparing low-income kids for college and career readiness in the future even as Walmart itself presides over a transformation of the workplace into one great big, underpaid, precarious, rights-free hell? Common Core math problem: Drawing on the informational text above, construct a Venn diagram that best demonstrates the overlap between the 1.4 million, mostly low-wage Walmart employees and the 2 million students who are being made college and career ready with the aid of Walmart profits. Don’t forget to provide a written explanation of how you reached your conclusion.”
The Waltons especially love the “no excuses” charters, and EduShyster knows why:
“Known for long days, long years, strict discipline and stripped down, test-prep academics focused almost exclusively on English and math, the schools so beloved by the Waltons specialize in a particular kind of acculturation that might best be described as learning how to work for the man. Students attending these schools receive training in such invaluable 21st century skills as showing up on time, making sure one’s uniform shirt is always tucked in and learning that you can only go to the bathroom when the boss says its OK and go home when s/he unlocks the doors.”
Great training, right? Just the work ethic needed to be a sales associate at Walmart.
On issues related to education, Connecticut’s Governor Dannell Malloy is one of the worst governors in the nation.
Jonathan Pelto, who served in the state legislature, is considering a run against Malloy. Pelto knows that Malloy has repeatedly let down students, parents, teachers, and communities. Malloy has followed the money–the hedge fund money–which supports charter schools for the few.
Pelto would also challenge Malloy’s corporate tax breaks and his failed economic development policies.
Win, lose, or draw, Pelto’s candidacy would be a breath of fresh air for Connecticut. It would force Malloy to defend his giveaway of public education to private corporations.
Diane Ravitch's blog 