Jeff Bryant here describes the unprecedented wave of activism that is ready to launch in spring 2014.
This is the year that parents, teachers, students, and concerned citizens mobilize to stop the juggernaut of high-stakes testing and privatization.
This is the year we demand that Race to the Top go away, to be replaced by genuine concern for education, children, and equity for purr neediest children.
This is the year to stop attacking our nation’s dedicated educators. Stop closing schools. Stop squandering money on for-profits and useless consultants.
This is the year to stop the beatings and to begin to develop genuine changes that help instead of punishing our schools.
We begin this weekend in Austin, Texas, when the Network for Public Education convenes hundreds of activists. And we grow from there into a movement to reclaim our public schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Where will the teachers’ unions be during the year of action? Will they be collaborators with deform, or will they join the Counter Deformation?
It seems that they all speak Vichy now.
The $64,000.00 question, no doubt.
Where will the teacher’s unions be? Groveling for a pat on the head from Bill Gates at the (children’s) table they’re so fixated on having a seat at.
I don’t normally like to encourage this kind of thing, but “Counter Deformation” is good.
LOL. Thanks, FLERP, I think. 🙂
Let’s see,
A Counter Deformation means that right now we would be the powers that be, the status quo (no not this Status Quo*). Hmm, somehow I don’t think most of us see ourselves as the PTB, soooo! Gonna have to think awhile to come up with a word for the reformation (that comes from outside) of a deformation that is more than a bifurcation.
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D4YYI8G5EM
Or this newer version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iTV-Jgw2u0
Duane, the Deformation is the status quo. We are working against that. I’m not getting your point.
My buddy heard NEA head and Randi on NPR today. Major waffling. No mention by Randi of the disaster of VAM. 😦 No surprises…
I am trying to be positive about this. I understand that folks who negotiate for a living have to practice the art of the possible. I also understand a) that DVR is a former math person and that the CC$$ in math, whatever people’s opinions about them, are not a major departure from what was basically a national consensus; they basically tweak existing state standards that were very like one another already because they were all based on previously existing NCTM standards and b) that RW is a lawyer and public policy person that many nonexperts in ELA simply don’t understand the issues involved with the CC$$ in ELA as written. One has to know something about language acquisition, for example,to know what’s wrong with the language “standards.” I have compared the CC$$ in ELA to Father Guido Sarducci’s Five-Minute University. The give the impression of being something written by a business major who kinda sorta remembers a few things from the two required English classes he had to take in college.
Connecticut action: Regardless of political affiliation, we need parents, teachers, students, taxpayers, etc. to stand up and demand answers, evidence and accountability for these reforms:
http://www.ncadvertiser.com/30428/house-gop-forces-common-core-public-hearing/
2014 should be the “The Year of Action.”
Teachers and students have been punished by high-stakes standardized testing for far too long, especially students with special needs.
Last night, I heard about a blind and brain-damaged child named Ethan Rediske, whose mother, Andrea Rediske, fought with the Florida Department of Education over a requirement that he take the Florida Adapted Assessment (FAA) test, even though he was too disabled to do so. She said that the long testing sessions endangered Ethan’s health to the point where it caused him to have pressure sores, a pool of fluid in his lungs, and increased seizures and spasticity that made his condition a lot worse than what it already was. On February 7, Ethan passed away at home. Since his death, Andrea has been urging lawmakers to approve the Ethan Rediske Act, which would allow local authorites to exempt from taking standardized tests in lieu of continuing the current lengthy process that involves state officials.
I applaud Mrs. Rediske for bringing this matter to the State’s attention because I’m an Aspie–a nickname for people with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism–who repeated the 3rd Grade after flunking the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) the first time I ever took it, despite that I had above-average grades in the class. I didn’t even get upset at the FLDOE for this until middle because, when I found out I had to be held back in 3rd Grade, I was 9 and too young to understand such legal matters. Now that I’m a freshman in college, I wish that things will be better for the public school system once the U.S. Department of Education changes their ways. Otherwise, they will go to Hell for taking what should’ve been a more enriching educational experience and turning it into an ordeal for teachers and students–most importantly, the students, even the ones with mental/physical disabilities.
Link to article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/19/mom-to-officials-stop-forcing-severely-disabled-kids-to-take-high-stakes-tests/
Reblogged this on 734 E Street and commented:
Equal Education for all or No Sleep for the Big Wigs at Night -_- !
Thanks Diane!
I think we will be waking a “sleeping giant” very soon here in CA. I had a call from my daughter, who lives in the Bay Area, yesterday. She was livid that her
nine year old son’s math scores had fallen so dramatically. He has been a top math student and scored high on previous state testing.The teacher took lots of time explaining CC. This must have been a practice test because it is my understanding that CA won’t be giving the test until 2015. I “educated” her on what was happening in our public schools. She has two younger children and I told her to be prepared!!
Maybe she is one of the “suburban moms” Arne Duncan spoke of!!
Yes, there will be a lot of action in stratifying schools based on abilities and means. You will have great private schools, median private schools, private schools for specialties like autism and mild retardations, and public school for the rest that are basically unruly and uneducat-able and just need babysitting until their pipeline reaches a prison
AND…it will be the year of inaction for some of the “reformers”: Newark superintendent Cami Anderson is literally refusing to meet the school board now, literally refusing to go to meetings where the public might ask her to engage…can you imagine?
http://bobbraunsledger.com/shame-on-you-cami-anderson/
Yes!
To return to the point of this post, that’s the great hope, that 2014 will, indeed, be the year of action. I suspect that the action will really start happening when the absurd new national tests are rolled out. That’s when the villagers grab their pitchforks and shovels, all around the country.
“and equity for purr neediest children”
oh no. . .she’s turning into a cat