In this post, a veteran teacher with 30 years of experience explains why she had to retire. She didn’t want to. But the obsession with data-based decision-making finally broke her spirit.
She recounts incidents where she was able to help students, where students gave her their trust, where classes learned to love literature as she did. She remembers staff meetings devoted to lessons and students, not to data analysis. As all the rewarding parts of her work were eliminated, she realized that the reforms made it I possible to do what she loved est: to teach.
She writes:
“I remember a time when department meetings, faculty meetings, and in-service days revolved around reading, sharing ideas, learning about our subjects—and not around the only topics that seem to matter today: lesson plan format, testing, rubrics, teacher evaluations and technological gimmicks. Watch your back! If you don’t conform it will be held against you!
“I remember AP students who told me their lives were changed after reading Hamlet, or Beloved, or Middlemarch. Is there a metric for that, or is a score on the AP exam the only thing that counts? Yes, we did lots of close reading, but is that what students will remember?
“Mostly I remember a time when I could be creative, do lots of research, veer off in different but related directions, have discussions, allow students to talk about how they feel (yes, David Coleman), and even lecture occasionally, without worrying if I covered every one of the myriad points in the Danielson model in EVERY lesson.
“I am so sad when I read that students, teachers, and schools are labeled “failures.” I am bewildered when I read statements from “reformers” with no background in child development writing standards, arbitrarily setting cut scores, misinterpreting test results, making flawed comparisons with other countries, giving only lip service to parents, and blaming teachers for every ill in society. I am angry when I think of people with no background in education (i.e. politicians from BOTH parties and businesspeople) condescending to, insulting, and even vilifying teachers, whose job is more difficult, challenging, and complex than anyone who has never tried it can imagine.”
Read it all. Get angry. Take action. Find allies. Join your state or local group to resist these terrible trends that destroy the love of teaching and learning. Join the Network for Public Education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The “reformers” want all dedicated and bright veteran teachers OUT of the school system. They want to replace them with fearful, compliant and very cheap teachers who have no job protection.
Veteran teachers reaching the end of the rope and resigning is a feature, not a flaw.
I agree and they want to replace them with their puppets….This is about Greed and $$$$ and Power..
It’s difficult in this world to find a job that allows you to do just about anything you feel like doing without being under any pressure and still get a good salary. Grow up.
Jim, how does your comment relate to the topic at hand? Are you implying something about educators? Who said anything about doing “anything you feel like” or mentioned a world without pressures?
And what do you mean by “grow up”? Unless I’m misreading your derision, it sounds like you mean accept and submit, but do not care about students and communities as human beings. It sounds like you mean teachers should not dare to innovate or treat education as anything other than another widget to sell on the market.
Could you clarify your position on this difficult world you speak of?
Poor little Jimmy living such a jealousy driven world.
Huh?
I don’t know what you intended by this comment but I will tell you that, as a parent, I refuse to hand my children over to anyone who has not been given the kind of professional discretion this teacher says has been removed from her working environment.
I find it very odd that the market-based proponents of the current deform agenda are doing everything they can to reduce the power of parents (i.e. “the consumers”) to influence the “services” provided to their children. The school board all the way up to the DOE has a centralized command-and-control structure that completely overwhelms parental voice by design. Small decentralized schools, on the other hand, are much more amenable to parent (“consumer”) concerns.
At the beginning of Diane’s recent book is this quote from John Dewey: “What the best and wisest parent wants for their own child, that must the community want for all of its children.” You won’t find any developmental child psychologists or neuropsychologists sending their children to Rocketship schools. Professional discretion is the last safety valve public school parents have against the waves of economic austerity and education fads that consistently plague public schooling. If this wiggle room is taken away – and that is what is happening – the balance of power has been completely shifted to the centralized authority.
In light of this it is worth mentioning that even Sudbury schools, where learning is completely placed in the hands of students, are able to produce individuals who can read, write, do mathematics, go to college and become functional members of society. What makes us think that all of this centralized planning is even necessary? Frankly, I don’t see how a democratic society can even sustain itself without some level of democracy in its educational system. Freedom is something that needs to be practiced regularly in order to understand it.
I agree that small decentralized schools are more amenable to parental concerns, and that is why I argue for the value of school level differentiation based on open (not geographically determined) enrollment. It is unlikely that everyone in my elementary catchment area will want a Waldorf education for their children, but it is likely that there are enough families in my town that want a Waldorf education for their students to form a reasonably sized elementary school.
Jim,
You seem to believe that any teacher who wants to teach creatively and inspirationally is acting childlike. Yet, you fail to understand just what made people like this writer get into education in the first place. I teach history out of a love of learning, a love for teaching, and a love of enlightening children. The corporate education reformers became involved in education out of a motive for personal profit and exploitation. Just whom should “grow up”?
Mr. Thomas, how do we join the Network for Public Education?
Bill,
Go to: http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/ and click on the “Become a member” box in the upper left corner.
Duane
It’s strange to me that some of the replies seem to suggest that this teacher shouldn’t expect to feel happy or satisfied in her work. Why should she, or anyone living a decent life and contributing to society, not be happy? (She doesn’t want to do anything she feels like doing; she wants to teach literature, design good lessons, and judge students’ work fairly.) I was just reading about a study based on detailed work diaries that showed workers are better at solving problems on days when they are feeling more positive. Crush all the positive feelings and satisfactions associated with any job and you will get worse results, not better ones.
Jim, you don’t get it. This is not about doing what she wants to do without being under any pressure; teacher have always been under pressure. This is being told what to do by people who haven’t a clue and watching the public, people like you, Jim, buying into their propaganda.
People, please. “Jim” is a proponent of eugenics. He has posted here multiple times about how whites are more intelligent than blacks and Asians are smarter than us all. I had thought (hoped) he had been banned, but, sadly, I see that’s not the case. Don’t bother wasting your typing on him.
Dienne, let me know if you see racist comments. I will delete them.
Dienne is correct. I have seen his comments before.
Diane – you have been quite diligent about removing his previous racist posts – thanks. He posted an exceptionally offensive post a while back that you removed and he didn’t show up for a while after that. I thought perhaps you had banned him, but I guess he was just laying low for a while.
Never fear, you know I’ll be the first to vote for removing anything racist.
Diane,
Why not just block him altogether?
Wait, is this the clown who tries to use race and genetics to explain IQ and other test scores?
Please kick out for failure to learn 9 the grade level biology!
Is this the racist Jim?
True, we all have parameters and expectations that are built into adult and professional jobs.
However, according to what I learned in Biz school ( Personnel Management 101), happy employees that feel secure, are encouraged to contribute, and feel autonomy in their work are usually more productive employees.
Surely, you learned what I did, Jim?
Jim. You are so far off base, we need to make a 4th base just for you..past left-field….past right-field and behind the trees at center-field.
Enron, Anderson, bank scandals, privatize? Are you kidding me.
The charter school millionaires will make their billions off the backs of the marginalized and then say sorry it didn’t work. And then the cycle repeats unless we STAND UP AND FIGHT BACK!!!
Read this post!
Sent from my iPad
At the risk of “topic diversion” I certainly want to heartily second what is written here but also to make the claim that, even from the SD management perspective, and definitely from the corporate reformer perspective, there is no such honest commitment – as a practical and accountable idea – to “data driven, evidence-based decision making.” It is only a fiction to be used as a hammer against real educators and those who understand innovation, and who care about children and public schools.
I know this from my 32 years of experience in evaluating asbestos, mold, lead and other health and deficient building conditions in schools. These conditions sicken our children, our teachers, our support staff, our maintenance and custodial workers and our building administrators. They result in absenteeism for students and teachers, compromising education. They impact on the most vulnerable among us, more than others and, they are too hidden from view [that is to parents and other stakeholders].
School District managers know or should know about these conditions [that is, from the legal standpoint they have either “actual knowledge”, “constructive knowledge” and/or both about the unhealthy and unsafe conditions. They just simply deny the scope and extent of the problem, hide whatever they are able, involve the time-honored tradition of plausible deniability and do whatever else is expedient to fail to act.
In at least some school districts, much data and information has actually been collected that is of great value but it is largely ignored by the “decision makers” who decide to close schools, cover-up this and to not fix that – just not part of the “Reform” agenda. Not only is the info available, the cost to make our schools “Healthy” an unarguable foundational need for high quality education, fiscal sustainability, social justice and the retention of great teachers and staff but it goes unlooked at and the conditions allowed to persist and worsen. The notion of collecting information, analyzing the data collected, employing an open, critical and careful analytical eye, and then acting on that data, is so foreign to school district managers, Arne Duncan, and the corporate reform supporters – except when it comes to teachers-testing-Core Curriculum – that you quickly recognize the dishonesty and vacuous of their speech and that there must be another agenda at work.
If photos of the conditions I regularly document and am describing were more broadly seen, I think people would be shocked and horrified about what is actually present in so many of our buildings – no one would feel comfortable allowing their children “to be exposed to that.” The “commitments” to the gods of accountability, data-driven and evidence based decision-making, fiscal sustainability and transparency, as so oft spoken by many of those controlling to much of our public schools, are hollow indeed and can be easily and quickly demonstrated as such.
I agree that the term “data-driven and evidence based decision making”” is just a cudgel used to silence dissent. The reform juggernaut has such mass and momentum that it would be a rare administrator indeed who would dare deviate from it on the basis of mere data or evidence.
I’m also very sympathetic to your concern about building conditions. I once worked in an old school where I know I was breathing asbestos dust every day (the walls’ plaster and pipe insulation had asbestos; gouges in the wall trickled dust; the room was always dusty due to inadequate custodial budget). Now I work in a newer school where rooms are hermetically sealed and fill up with Expo marker fumes. Windows cannot be opened. Fire alarms are set at such a high volume that I’m certain they’re causing hearing loss as students walk right under them exiting the classroom. Why aren’t these issues on the reformers’ agenda?
So strangely, to me at least, this issue receives so little talk, attention and review – by most of us – creating a situation that I have come to see seriously compromises our work, the work of unions and teachers. I have to admit that I just don’t understand the deafening silence – from “our side” about the meaningfulness, the significance and the very real and powerful connections between the idea of a “Healthy” school re: illness, disease, etc., and a “Healthy” school re: education, social justice and progressive approaches. Maybe this is part of the reason we are in the fix we are in
Ponderosa,
“Now I work in a newer school where rooms are hermetically sealed and fill up with Expo marker fumes. Windows cannot be opened.”
Most building codes for these buildings require that something like 30% of the air that the HVAC system moves into a room has to be from the outside so that fresh air is continually being cycled into the room.
And yes, those fumes are obnoxious, the markers expensive and messy. I wish I still had the old fashioned chalk board. But would they ask a teacher?-ha ha!!
They know the schools are deadly and do nothing. I know of a school where 6or more teachers died of cancer and yet…they reported it had nothing to do with the school…I …to this day …do not believe one word of the report….
neanderthal100: You’re right. I went to a doctor to find out why I was so chronically tired. When I told him who I worked for, he had that “Aha!” look on his face, and said that much of my malaise could be attributed to the building that I work in. I should mention that I DON’T feel this way during the summer, or when we’re on breaks. As for other staff in my school, there seems to be a disproportionate amount of cancer cases ( none of these people smoke).
There appears to be a definite correlation here, yet nothing is done. I wonder why?
I followed the links which eventually led me to this response to a Valerie Strauss column: http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/12/31/i-would-love-to-teach-but/
I only had a few years total as a bonafide public school teacher, but I spent all my adult years teaching is some way or another. I taught Sunday school and still do, I coached soccer and hockey, and I was a substitute in my home district for close to ten years before I ventured back into the classroom as a SpEd TA and then a teacher. I loved it, but that world is gone. I felt vaguely uncomfortable in my teaching role and spent endless hours “perfecting my craft.” Now I know that unease was a symptom of the changes overtaking education and teaching. I was so lucky to have a brief time really teaching probably only because I was too trusting to realize what was happening. I don’t think I regret being so clueless. I don’t know if I could have played the games; I don’t have it in me to even try anymore. Fortunately subbing is not regimented, yet.
“Fortunately, subbing is not regimented, yet”.
That’s because as a sub, you’re not considered to be a “real” teacher, and the best that the powers that be expect of a sub is that you maintain classroom management.
Also, you’re not on the payroll, not collecting benefits, and not considered to have any impact on the students that you are presiding over while you’re subbing test and score wise.
Not to be cruel, but I subbed as well prior to becoming a certified teacher, and often felt that as a sub, we were the step children of the organization.
If the attitude towards substitute teachers changes, you can bet regimenting will follow.
I know subs are not taken seriously, that we are just expected to keep the class under control. If you know what you are doing, though, eventually teachers notice and request you. I got to do a lot of teaching over the years after building up that trust. It’s not the same, you’re right, and now that is a good thing. Because the expectations are not high, I have leeway to actually have some fun with the kids rather than documenting a narrow view of what “time on task” means.
I think I am almost too old to care whether someone else takes me seriously or not. You reach a certain age, and people start to smile benignly at you as if there is not a thought in your head. Once you get past wanting to bash their teeth in, you either adopt an amused tolerance or ignore them. I am thinking of taking up karate.
2old2teach: Yes, you are right. A good sub that knows what he/she is doing eventually does get noticed and is requested by the teachers to take their classes.
Frankly, I enjoyed subbing for the reasons that you detailed. As you said, for now, it’s a good thing, for both teachers and the students. Glad to hear that you’re actually having fun, and having an impact on the kids you’re with. It’s good to know that there are still moments of joy to be had by all in the classrooms of today.
2old2teach: Very wise words. Thanks for making me laugh! Happy New Year to you and yours. Any school that is employing you should be very grateful for having you around.
Oh my….unless you are a fixed sub at one or two schools…this is the job where you have to suffer more abuse than any other on this planet. I have never been a substitute for a day…..nor do I ever want to do that job…The only subs that need to be going into some of these school…(some…not all) are NFL football clones or former NFL players…..Believe it or not..
My school has 2 veteran teachers, that’s it! One is the UFT rep and now has a target on her back because she stands up for what is right for teachers and students. The principal has zero respect for her when they should be working together. The other veteran teacher has no voice. Just complies with whatever admin says to do. This is disheartening to younger teachers who really care. If you speak up for what is right be prepared to have your life made a living hell.
Document-Document-Document….every word..every principal meeting…every discipline problem..every parent meeting…every comment…very important….every student meeting….every single thing…video when possible….Keep fighting for what is right..The cream always rises to the Top!
Do not forget that pocket tape recorder..Keep it at all times..
A sad commentary, but so true. I am concerned that teachers are not standing up and speaking out against the Sec.Duncan. The New York Times had an article today about our educational system and Duncan and his team should read it and re think their agenda.
“I am so sad when I read that students, teachers, and schools are labeled “failures.” I am bewildered when I read statements from “reformers” with no background in child development writing standards, arbitrarily setting cut scores, misinterpreting test results, making flawed comparisons with other countries, giving only lip service to parents, and blaming teachers for every ill in society. I am angry when I think of people with no background in education (i.e. politicians from BOTH parties and businesspeople) condescending to, insulting, and even vilifying teachers, whose job is more difficult, challenging, and complex than anyone who has never tried it can imagine.”
This writer wrote exactly the way I have been feeling. She pulled the words right out of my psyche, my soul. Is she clairvoyant?
It is in this one paragraph – comprised of three rather dense, rich sentences – that THE quintessential summary of what has happened to out nation’s approximate 3.3 million public school teachers is laid out in powerful, truthful language.
But there is hope as long as we continue to organize and mobilize.
Time for me to make my 2014 contribution to NPE . . . .
Robert,
Unfortunately, we teachers, or at least most of them perpetuate the “F” word meme on a daily basis. When a student uses the “F” word it becomes a starting point for a quick discussion of the complete invalidity of grades and grading and that I’d rather have him/her say “fuck” than to say “fail”.
This “F” word meme is so culturally ingrained that it is almost impossible to get people to reconsider their thoughts/actions on it. Teachers think I’m crazy when I discuss this with them after they comment on “What a failure so&so is”. Drives me crazy.
Teacher, cleanse thy own thought of the insidious “F” word.
I understand (I think I do) what you’re saying, Duane.
Plenty of colorful language is used in my household privately between my wife (also a teacher) and me to characterize people like Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg.
But, as you know, throwing around the “F” word is in discourse here would only lessen the credibility that everyone has worked hard to establish. Why throw cheap acrylics on the Mona Lisa?
However, an occasional slang thrown here and there at a dinner party when talking about the reform movement goes well with a good 2003 Percharmant from the Bergerac region in France, some fois gras, and a hunk of bread with slices of Cantal . . . . .
Ah. . . .. Those French . . .
LOL….LOL……A teacher at my school told her students that the only “F” word she wanted to hear was “Fraction: or “Function”….It worked!
I have been teaching for 20 years. It has always chsmakkenged me, but I love my subject and have always loved finding interesting ways of sharing my knowledge. Though now I am looking for an out. I feel overwhelmed, mistreated, and no longer valued. Sad.
“I feel overwhelmed,…”
…as is indicated by your spelling of challenged! 🙂
I don’t mean to make light of your feelings. Sometimes an urge to find humor in the pain helps.
Reformers could careless if teachers have a pedagogical view of collected experiences and expertise about teaching and child development. We are Supposedly a vehicle to deliver “knowledge” using the same material, in the same way, and conform to their rules. Who needs a teaching certificate to be a puppet? We are losing our craft, because we are spending countless hours worrying about CCS, VAM and keeping our jobs.
We are being micromanaged to behave and teach to a long list of observable required duties and as if we were spectacles behind glass windows. When I look at the new teacher evaluation, it makes me wonder if there are other job positions that scutinizes their employees to a myriad of minute tasks. And to make matters worse and counterproductive, we are supposed to use direct instruction material like engage NY to prove ourselves worthy of an effective teacher.
What constitutes best practices is in the eyes of reformers. We need to continue to use researched-based practices as we know them regardless of what they say. They will change the face of Mt. Rushmore if we let them.
This is why I have started a lawsuit in Connecticut about the evaluation system. It is still in the beginning stages. I will keep you informed.
Bill, thank you for your efforts in finding justice for teachers’ job responsibilities. Yes, please keep us informed.
DO NOT RELENT.
Bill,
If you need any “research” into the invalidities of the process I’d be glad to help you. Let me know. You can contact me at: dswacker@centurytel.net . Just put something in the subject line that it’s about invalidities.
Duane
I am so happy to not be one of those “WE’s”…I can not believe the number of teachers that are leaving the schools mid-year…..unbelievable…
I have also read on facebook a group of K parents who can not understand why their children are tested so much..These young professionals are beginning to figure this thing out and I think these new parents will be getting involved to make a difference..or…they will move their children to a private school…
I see the future. I see 100-150 kids sitting in rows watching lectures on a video screen. I see a temporary “teacher” going around checking their Common Core, national curriculum workbooks at the end of class. These “teachers” won’t be allowed to teach anymore, just correct answers in a Common Core workbook. There will be no teaching careers or pensions. These are strictly “temporary” workers. There may also be guards with tasers and “quick reaction teams” to pull out “troublemakers.” Kids will earn through silence and good behavior outdoor time, better food, etc. Think of the savings and profits for the principals. They will have isolation cells where troublemaking students will go over the Common Core basic tenets and chants. Kids will wear bracelets for monitoring. Most of the graduating students will board barges to work low wage jobs in Asia or Africa. Life is cheap! Others will go directly to prison where life won’t change much (“just like school”, they will say). A few (based on test scores) will become the new “principals” and “overlords” and held up to the other 99% as success stories. A few “makers” will lord of a sea of “takers.” This transformation is happening right now in a million little ways. So much money can be made. Some of these schools could have kids make license plates, bullets, computer chips, and other federal/corporate things. Give them a few pennies an hour and call it “job training.” Give them a “taste” of the future. We are at the dawn of a new era! Don’t be a Luddite!
“I see the future. I see 100-150 kids sitting in rows watching lectures on a video screen. I see a temporary “teacher” going around checking their Common Core, national curriculum workbooks at the end of class.
Back to the future??
From “Discipline and Punish” by Foucault in speaking of the “new” schooling of the 1700’s:
‘In a school of 360 children, the master who would like to instruct each pupil in turn for a session of three hours would not be able to give half a minute to each. By the new method [computer learning], each of the 360 pupils writes, read or counts for two and a half hours’ (cf. Bernard).
“The training of school children was to be carried out in the same way: few word, not explanation, a total silence interrupted only signals–bells, clapping of hands, gestures, a mere glance from the teacher [computer prompts]. . . . ‘The first and principal use of the signal is to attract at once the attention of all the pupils to the teacher and to make them attentive to what he wishes to impart to them. Thus, whenever he wishes to attract the attention of the children, and to bring the exercise to an end, he will strike the signal once. Whenever a good pupil hears the noise of the signal, he will imagine that he is hearing the voice of the teach or rather the voice of God himself calling him by his nam. He will then partake of the feelings of the young Samuel, saying with him in the depths of this sou: “Lord, I am here”‘ (Boussanelle, 2). The pupil will have to have learnt the code of the signals [computer prompts] and respond automatically to them. ‘When prayer has been said, the teacher will strike the signal at once and, turning to the child whom he wishes to read, he will make the sign to begin. To make a sign to stop to a pupil who is reading, he will strike the signal once. . . To make a sign to a pupil to repeat when he has read badly or mispronounced a letter, syllable or a word, he will strike the signal twice in rapid succession. . . . The mutual improvement school was to exploit still further this control of behaviour by the system of signals [computers] to which one had to react immediately. Even verbal orders were to function as elements of signalization. . . . ‘
[my added comments/words]
Very well done. I have had similar nightmares but you make it seem even more real and potentially realisable.
They are called facilitators….They will be facilitating Test Prep as that is all that goes on in these schools anymore…
Thank you. What should teachers do?!?
From my Android phone
I woudl go into the classroom and just Teach…..If you spend 17 hours a day trying to figure out what to teach…you get lost in the mire as it goes around in circles….God help any child in the schools today..They can not add a list of two-digit numbers without a calculator..have no mental math capabilities….can not figure out 1/3 of a dollar…can not even do 50% in some cases…Can not figure out a 15% gratuity in their heads..Know nothing about the real math…but they can enter x-y-coordinates in a $100 calculator and figure out what kind of function is represented by the data and how high the football goes up before gravity pulls it back down…Oh..they always forget which buttons to push so you make sure you make a rhyme so they can remember it for the test…..oh…and the next test..oh..and the next test..oh…and the next test.. Can not conjugate the verb to be..”.I is ….you is…he were”….they was…no kidding…and I mean it..
Bill has a good point about “VAM” evaluations. How can you be held accountable for students who aren’t in class? I know PLENTY of teachers who are keeping meticulous records of which kids are in class. How can you be legally held responsible (or fired) for a student who is excused by the parents to leave school for a week to go to Florida? Some students are literally in class half the time. Now that teacher is going to be fired for it? It boggles the mind. Some teachers keep track of homework in this way. How can you be responsible for a student’s test scores, if they rarely did the homework? This could have legal ramifications as well. There is something called “individual responsibility.” Oh I wish I were a lawyer…
John,
It goes far, far deeper than that. I maintain that, here in Hartford at least, the Board of Education has created policies that have prevented teachers from teaching effectively, and have prevented students from learning effectively. For example, beginning in 2006, Hartford BoE eliminated all attendance requirements and mandated a minimum failing grade of 55%. They also mandated that principals would be evaluated on their advancement rate, meaning that school administrators could not hold back any student who failed a given grade level. The net results are:
1. Students advance to the next higher grade without having mastered the objectives of the lower grade.
2. Students make it to high school without being able to function at the 3rd grade level in any academic skills.
3. Having earned a grade of 65% in one quarter of a one-semester course, students attend no further classes, knowing that the mandated lowest permissible grade of 55% will balance out the 65% for a passing grade of 60% for the course.
4. Having passed one quarter of a full-year course, students attend no further classes during the remaining three quarters, knowing that 75% in one quarter will average out to 60% for the year, thereby enabling them to pass the course.
5. Graduation rates increase exponentially without most students ever having passed a single course. Superintendents and BoE members pat themselves on the back for having improved graduation rates.
6. Knowing that students have been allowed to advance to high school without ever having to pass any grade level or course, the BoE has the audacity to bring in common core and the associated test, and hold teachers accountable for students’ test scores, even for those students that a given teacher has never had.
7. The BoE has also begun evaluating teachers on parental involvement, meaning that we are held accountable for adult decisions over whom we have no control. The BoE knows that it is unfair; they just don’t care.
Hence, my lawsuit. Again, it is in the planning phase, but the two attorneys and one judge who are helping me are discussing the most appropriate venue. Should we file this as a class action lawsuit against the state, or make it a federal civil rights case? Either way, we now have the ball rolling.
VAM (APPR here in NY) is the only real leverage that reformers have.
You are attacking the root of the testing issue, quite properly. Without the punitive arm of RTTT/CCSS the reformers will be neutered!
Best of luck and DO NOT RELENT.
Hi, Bill. I wonder if you have an opinion on the CREC schools? Just a brief word or two? I am curious about them. Thanks, Emmy.
Emmy,
I have never given them much thought. Why do you ask?
They have a montessori and a reggio school, among others, and they encourage a mix of students from the city and suburbs. The concept appears better than how urban reforms are usually implemented. I was just interested in an “on the ground” perspective. Best wishes in your lawsuit.
Emmy,
My daughter is trained to teach the Montessori system. She swears by it. Anyway, I have nothing against any particular type of school (except Charters); my angst is directed against corporate education reform because of their vast corruption, killing public schools in the name of corporate profit, and their junk science of reliance on test scores coupled with their false use of scores to determine school success and teacher evaluations.
Right. So I am wondering if what was done there can be identified as a reform model of what should be done other than corporate-style reform? It looks appealing to me but, as with all things, I wondered if looks were somehow deceiving? Anyway, all the best with your efforts. Few people realize that Hartford is one of the poorest (if not the poorest) cities in the nation due to how its boundaries are drawn.
When a “Nation at Risk” came out several decades ago I tried to get our teachers and administrators to stand against the stupidity of it but nothing happened. Degration has continued to the folly of what is happening now.
Yes, I retired 23 years ago and at that time the cry was “how long do you have to go before you retire”? So, rather than improving, the strictures on educators have expanded.
Our country is being taken over by big money corporations and schools are a source of big money so naturally “that is where the money is” so like the banks, schools become a source of monetary gain for those seeking to gain financial gain with no thought beyond that.
As mentioned many times I LOVED teaching and still feel a bond toward children and miss working with them. However, because of ever increasing politics I could not wait until monetarily sufficiently enabled to get out.
How on earth our country is supposed to exist as a democracy when our government has been bought by big money, our media has been taken over by 5 large corporations which shape the news in just the way that Hitler did to control the German thinking, and now even our children are brought up to be slaves to the corporate way of thinking, every person a widget rather than a “human” being.
Am I being cynical. Of course but after years of study and trying to make a better society and being whacked for that, do something beyond average and the school board cannot understand what is being done because it is not what every other school system does, “average”. etc etc. one does tend to become cynical especially when one goes beyond the sound bites of corporate media to find out what is really going on in our government.
Scholarship, searching for “truths” means little if anything under the rush for monetary gain now.
Sorry: but at my age now it is easy to become angry as well as cynical. It does no good to expound here of course but it does give me a chance to “sound off”.
I often reflect on the kind of learning and teaching that I experienced as a student growing up during the 60’s and 70’s.
NEVER do I recall my teachers ( either in elementary or high school) doing the amount of paperwork in my classes that I see teachers doing at my school. The lessons that I remember didn’t appear to be scripted by the teachers ( though , I’m sure they were well planned), and there was always room for questions and conversation, as well as time to explore deeply some topic or subject.
What has happened? Those of my generation that experienced education the way that I did are literate, can read, write, and think critically. I recall actually liking coming to school to learn.
In spite of all of the burdens placed on educators today, students STILL don’t seem to be getting half the education that we did. According to those that decry the school systems of the United States ( for their own purposes?), our students are behind in all of those crucial areas. Apparently, all of these “reforms” foisted upon educators are NOT working. The ones suffering? The students that sit in those chairs, the future citizens of this Nation. And, we, as a nation will suffer, as well.
Do you recall that line from the Pink Floyd song that said : “Teachers, leave those kids alone”? Perhaps we should paraphrase: “Reformers, leave those TEACHERS alone”…….
Get corporatism OUT of the classrooms, and let educators do what they do best- educate freely and without a sword hanging over their heads. Maybe we’ll see a REAL difference in our students when the usurpers and hijackers of education are booted from our classrooms.
Joan,
I most emphatically agree! I, too, grew up in the ’60’s and had a wonderful time learning in high school. But, I would like to offer another paraphrase of a ’60’s slogan, “What if we gave a standardized test and nobody showed up?”.
Thanks, Bill. As for your paraphrase – true, my friend, very true……
The question is: WHY don’t we stand up to these things as parents and teachers, rather than “going along to get along”?
What has happened to that spirit when people actually protested and fought for what they believed in? If I hear from my colleagues “it is what is is” one more time, I’m going to let out a primal scream that may shatter the windows in the immediate vicinity of my school.
Joan,
With respect, Many of us here in CT are meeting with parents groups to let them know of the opting out option that they have. Also, we have appeared at Board of Ed meetings and have stopped corporate takeovers of several public schools. We managed to get rid of Paul Vallas and now we are working at getting Steven Perry removed from Hartford Public Schools over his vile threats against anyone who opposes him. In other words, the ’60’s are alive and well in CT!
I was in high school and college in the sixties and seventies, too. The protesters were mainly the young people. The Vietnam War provided a impetus for a very strong youth movement with several different foci including civil rights, voting rights/age,war protest,… As I have said before, we need a strong youth movement again. As the reform agenda warps higher education perhaps we will see a reaction that will garner more serious attention. I hope the high school students continue to exercise their civil rights and speak out for quality education, but I see a much larger movement that needs to coalesce
against an exclusively corporate world view. Too many important social issues are being seen predominantly through a corporate crystal ball.
Bill: I’d love it if you could get some of that “spirit of the 60’s” sent over to New York City, particularly in the Bronx, where I work (wink!).
Joan,
God bless you all for voting in Mayor de Blasio! Now, if you could start a letter writing campaign to remind him about who put him in office and why. He might need reminding that he does not work for Arne Duncan or Barack Obama.
Your post is so eloquent and so real…
Reblogged this on Terri Goldson and commented:
Change in the realm of education is constant but the current reform movement is different. It is another phase that will come, be revised, refined and eventually replaced by the next big theoretical idea. Time will tell! ….Knowledge IS Power!
I definitely agree that teachers are restricted, especially within the world of teacher evaluations. If performed properly, teacher observations can provide a teacher with support, and even ideas for engaging activities. With that said, I think the other side of this letter’s “coin” is the avoidance and departure of teachers within challenging urban, high-poverty public schools. We often ignore this unfortunate trend. As an public middle school teacher, who works in such a school, I’ll submit, at least, four reasons why teachers “avoid” or “leave” some of the most challenging schools.
http://ward8teacher.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/teacher-quartering-four-reasons-why-teachers-avoid-or-leave-high-poverty-urban-public-schools/
Reblogged this on Naked Teaching and commented:
It took me 34 years in special education to make the same decision. I would have worked with kids forever if we could just burn 90% of the paperwork and data collection. As I told parents on numerous occasions, I can work with your child or I can take data, but not in the same minutes. Which would you prefer? Guess what the answer was.
But she is lucky. Many of us are trapped, abused, terrified, disgusted, and so overworked that it’s mighty difficult to become involved, even if you’re brave enough to face the backlash.