A reader (identified by her Twitter handle as mimi@zombienation15) responds to an earlier post called “Who Loves Standardized Testing?,” where I described a panel in Austin at SXSW where both Randi Weingarten and Peter Cunningham, Arne Duncan’s former Assistant Secretary of Education for communications, agreed that it was time for a Congressional investigation of the abuses, misuses, and cost of standardized testing. I asked, if no one is in favor of what we are doing now, “Who is the man behind the curtain who is wasting billions on testing, forcing severely ill children to take tests, making little children hate school ?” Here is this reader’s response:
*******************
The “man behind the curtain” is the negative judgmental voice of authority that is now “hard wired” into almost every man, woman, and child in America. It is the voice that has resulted from people living in fear and insecurity from chronic stress. It is the voice of people who have been functioning in a survival mode for a long time, and they have become self-absorbed, callous, and dishonest. That is the hallmark of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It is pervasive not only in the school system, but in government, business, and all phases of American society. It is a psychological plague.
We have become a society that is destroying our children. Our children cannot survive in an environment that is punitive and critical, and creates chronic stress from fear and insecurity. They are withering on the vines from lack of nurturing. Parents own fears have allowed them to become “indoctrinated” into this test obsessed data system that causes them be punitive and focus on their children’s performance, while in denial about their children’s emotional distress. They are not connecting to their children’s greatest needs. Teachers’ fear of their own job performance ratings has allowed them to become indoctrinated into a system that uses them to bully and punish children with boring mind numbing work and no creative freedom to grow independently and develop their own identity. Teachers are not connecting to children’s emotional needs. School boards and community leaders have become fearful of challenging the status quo and are impotent and in denial. They are not connecting to children’s most basic developmental needs. Government and business leaders have become enmeshed and greedy, and more concerned with their self interests. They are not connecting to children’s needs. We are a country living in fear, and the greatest price is being paid by our children.
The “man behind the curtain” represents the “weak, impotent, callous, greedy immature leaders” who lust for power and control. They are not connecting to the children’s distress, nor do they understand children’s basic developmental needs. They are using their wealth and power to gain control over all the “brainless”, “heartless”, “courage-less” submissive people in our country of OZ. These submissive parents and community members were conditioned as children to be “good and obedient and never question authority”. They were taught not to think for themselves, but only to take orders from domineering parents and teachers. Most of our leaders today are products of this oppressive dysfunctional environment that has resulted from chronic stress in the US since the 80′s. We cannot trust our leaders, but we are obedient to their abusive authority. We are struggling financially and morally, and living in chronic fear of survival because we feel insecure and threatened. Our children are endangered. We have lost our spirit.
But, we cannot afford to be idle bystanders any longer and listen to the “man behind the curtain”. We cannot continue listening to our internal judgmental voice saying “What will people think”. We cannot continue to feel depressed and helpless like most victims of bullying. It is time to step out of that helpless submissive obedient role of a victim and take action. Do not participate in bullying your children! Do not allow this psychological abuse to damage them for life. Do not let them participate in high stakes testing and obsessive test drill! Refuse the test! Demand a nurturing environment for your children. Civil Disobedience is the only immediate way to stop this insanity that is causing the US to become a pied-piper dictatorship that is stealing our children.
I have been an educational social worker for years. As others in my profession, I recognize that children’s mental and physical health cannot survive this current punitive school environment. Just like any living organism, children need a safe and nurturing place to grow. If you as a parent will not advocate for your child, who will?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“They are using their wealth and power to gain control over all the “brainless”, “heartless”, “courage-less” submissive people in our country of OZ.”
Anyone got a bucket of water?
We also need a little dog (pull back the curtain), a good witch (show us the way), and some ruby slippers (to solve our problem).
Actually, we have those things, don’e we? Maybe we can pull this thing off.
LOL. Love this comment!
Thanks, Bob.
Just trying to add a bit of levity!
PS: You were one of the people I was referring to in my silly analogy. Spot yourself (together with our other heavy lifters around here) busily pulling back the curtain so we can see/know the truth/backstory/reality?
The good witch is obvious.
Now if we can just remember how to work those darn slippers!
Same analogies popped into my head.
Just blasted a defender of the CCSS at the Brookings Institution who is trying to counteract objections to the CCSS with another round of spin.
Brookings is calling for the CCSSO/NGA to start rigorously enforcing its copyright on the “standards,” for the CCSSO/NGA to become a defacto curriculum censorship office. That possibility was built into the Common Core from the beginning via its copyright. This is a chilling turn of events, and the people of a democratic state will vigorously oppose it by scrapping the copyrighted “standards” and developing their own alternative frameworks.
They are preying on the generally good nature of educators Bob. A plot this nefarious, is simply too bad (as in dangerous) to be true, almost impossible for us to believe. Our disbelief prevents outrage and action.
I have wondered about that, NYS. People don’t seem willing to believe what is actually happening. But these people–the plutocrats and their hirelings among the educrats and policy wonks in the foundations–have mastered the arts of equivocation and circumventing democratic processes.
For example, our laws prohibited the USDOE from promulgating curricula, so it used NCLB waivers to force states’ hands with regard to CC$$, even though the math “standards” are quite clearly a curriculum outline. So, they could claim that they were TECHNICALLY in compliance. Same here. No one would stand for the outright creation of a centralized private curriculum censorship organization, but the CCSSO and NGA enforcing their copyright of the standards and deciding who is and is not in compliance is, effectively, equivalent to that.
In other words, the ed deformers have become masters at staying just within the law while completely circumventing and undermining democratic processes. The mechanisms that they are employing aren’t describable in sound bites, which is all our media trades in these days, and the oligarchs know that.
Tyranny can come about through violent revolution or because no one is paying attention.
The oligarchs are counting on the latter. The mechanisms that they are employing are just barely within the law and are complex enough that people will not have the patience to learn about them and to understand them, or so the oligarchs expect. They may be right about that.
Even on this blog, if any explanation runs to more than a few lines, then people tend to skip it, and the truth is too ugly for many to take seriously.
Thanks for the link, Robert! As one from the state where the governor (1percent) has declared “public schools are failing” and “we need a death penalty for failing schools,” and who LOVES CCSS and VAM, I see what we are up against next: a “lack of fidelity” to the Cc$$. A violation of copyright! What other country has standards that are copyrighted? And approved by state governments? Eva gets a pass in those important charter schools, but public schools, beware! Sometimes I feel as though I am living a nightmare in the old Soviet Union. Yes, I have been reading The Shock Doctrine and American Betrayal and the Deliberate Dumbing Down of America. Other titles are welcome.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx @ Bob S: the only reason what deformers are doing is legal is that the laws (a)on the books aren’t enforced & (b)in many cases have been changed so as to allow moneyed interests to circumvent democracy.
I LOVE THIS! A manifesto of sorts… All the while reading I kept thinking of that documentary “What are we fighting for?”
I’m inspired- Thank you!
Here’s the testing schedule for Ohio students this spring:
“About 120,000 Ohio students will test drive the new standardized exams that Ohio plans — tentatively — to start using in 2015 as the state shifts toward the new minimum standards for each grade shared by 45 states.
The “field tests” of the mostly-online exams – some given between March 24 and April 11 and others from May 5 through June 6 – won’t count this year.
Districts and students won’t even be told how they did on the two-hour tests, other than whether students took the tests properly.
High school students still have to pass the Ohio Graduation Tests, while younger grades are still taking the Ohio Achievement Assessments this spring.”
The relentlessly grim and completely joyless ed reform train rolls along, the same as it has for more than a decade now.
It was always all about the tests, and it’s still all about the tests. How can any adult honestly tell these kids it ISN’T about the tests? They’ll be focusing on tests for weeks. They’re not idiots. They’ve probably figured it out.
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/03/whos_testing_the_new_common_co.html
This really strikes a chord with me. My overall impression of the education deform movement has been that it is all about “getting tougher” with kids, with teachers, with schools. There is an authoritarian, mean-spirited streak that runs through all of ed deform summed up, I think, in this line from the alphabet that appeared in the first textbook ever published on these shores, The New England Primer:
The idle fool
Is whip’t in school.
I think that ed deform is based upon an outmoded extrinsic punishment and reward theory of education. What the deformers do not understand is that on cognitive tasks, extrinsic punishment and reward is actually DEMOTIVATING and leads to POORER performance.
Because they do not understand that real learning occurs when it is intrinsically motivated and that people (teachers and administrators) work best under conditions of self-direction, or autonomy, the ed deformers are wrong from the start.
It’s not surprising that the members of the oligarchical class pushing these deforms has such an authoritarian bent, but all of this is really damaging to kids, to teachers, to the whole humane enterprise that is learning and teaching.
I sum up the ed deform theory as follows:
1. Learning is mastery of the bullet list.
2. Teaching is the doling out of punishment and reward based on that demonstration of that mastery.
cx: It’s not surprising that the members of the oligarchical class pushing these deforms HAVE such an authoritarian bent
Authoritarians can only control through fear. It is the only tool they have.
“What the deformers do not understand is that on cognitive tasks, extrinsic punishment and reward is actually DEMOTIVATING and leads to POORER performance.”
I cringe when I hear people saying the deformers “don’t understand”. I’m especially surprised reading that from you. The deformers understand perfectly well, which is why they would never tolerate such abusive treatment for their own snowflakes. Their kids go to school where they are nurtured, supported and praised, not just rewarded and certainly never punished.
Your point is well made, Dienne.
Exactly, Dienne!
PS, love the snowflake reference.
Dienne: yes, yes, and YES!
Let’s take a look at the tiniest bit of what is offered at the schools that the self-styled “education reformers” send their “snowflakes” er THEIR OWN CHILDREN to. And who better to use as an example than one of the shiniest stars in the cage busting achievement gap crushing firmament, Michelle Rhee?
Folks, this is just a scintilla of what their “most precious assets” get to enjoy, er, “endure.”
On the Harpeth Hall website: “Begun in 1973, Winterim is a three-week program of on and off campus opportunities meant to broaden the intellectual horizons of our students. Taking place every January, Winterim has become a hallmark of Harpeth Hall’s innovative curriculum.”
[start quote]
Winterim offers students the very best in experiential learning, creating for them a chance to see their academic studies take a tangible, dynamic form. They are immersed in environments where they use language skills during a home stay in France or Argentina, math skills to design a model home, analytical and science skills in a Cryptography course, or writing and communication skills at a local or national news station.
During Winterim, juniors and seniors have traveled to Argentina, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Qatar, South Africa, and Spain. These academic trips and cultural exchanges have fostered a deeper understanding of the world and the world’s needs.
In New Zealand, students studied marine biology, ecology and native cultures while participating in service learning. In Japan, students studied the art and culture of that country, in South Africa, students were immersed in service learning and issues of global poverty. In England, Greece, and Italy, students experienced the rich history and culture of civilizations that have so impacted and shaped our own American heritage. In Argentina, France and Spain, students were immersed in the language of the three countries during home stays and while interacting with their exchange hosts at local schools in Bonpland, Paris and Malaga.
[end quote]
Link: http://www.harpethhall.org/podium/default.aspx?t=151822
But what about “every poor parent should have the same opportunity as a rich parent to send their kids to a good school”?
There couldn’t be a gap between word and deed, could there?
Well, don’t count on straight shootin’ when someone stands resolutely on their Marxist principles:
“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
😎
P.S. ¿? Groucho, natcherly. There’s another Marx I haven’t heard about?
Motivation 101, or why authoritarian approaches based on extrinsic reward and punishment do not work:
All this becomes really important when one considers the importance to outcomes of motivation of low-SES kids:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/09/how_children_succeed_book_excerpt_what_the_most_boring_test_in_the_world_tells_us_about_motivation_and_iq_.html
Depends on what you mean by “work”. I think external rewards and punishments “work” quite well for what the deformers want.
Interestingly, Dienne, that doesn’t seem to be true. Even when the work is fairly low-level, if it places some cognitive demand on the worker, then the extrinsic rewards are demotivating. This applies to service work as well as to white-collar jobs.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx I agree with all this, Bob, but wasn’t it ever thus in hard economic times? This is how every dictator got where he went.
Our govt, since the advent of globalism in the late ’70’s, has chosen, rather than to meet the challenge, to change the laws so that money would flow into the hands of the money-changers while abetting the loss of jobs– thus clinching power at the top & assuring the top a continual flow of $ during the downturn, to the demise of middle/working/poor classes. We have arrived at the cannabilism of the public sector.
It would help a lot of those of us in ed would bray loudest about the failure of our gov to foment the sort of economy that could support a public sector.
We have arrived at the cannibalism of the public sector.
exactly. well said, S&F!
The Brookings Institution just called for the two organizations that copyrighted the Common Core State Standards, the CCSSO and the NGA, to become a censorship office for curricula nationwide. I am not making this up, and I am not exaggerating. Here are the details:
Two economists at the Brookings Institution, Joshua Bleiberg and Darrell M. West, made three policy proposals in a piece published March 6, 2014, on the Brookings website. One was this:
“The Common Core [sic; Bleiberg and West are referring to the NGA and the CCSSO] should vigorously enforce their licensing agreement. In the past textbook writers and others have inappropriately claimed that they aligned course content. Supporters of standards based reform should recognize that low quality content could sink the standards and enforce their copyright accordingly.”
Let’s be clear about what they are calling for here:
They are saying that the CCSSO and NGA should be censorship organizations that review curricula and gives it a “nihil obstat.” In effect, such a policy would create a national curriculum censorship organization, for if a state has adopted the Common Core, a publisher will not be able to sell product in that state without it being Common Core aligned, and in order to say that the product is Common Core aligned, the publisher would have to get CCSSO/NGA approval.
When I first read that the Common Core had been copyrighted, a disturbing thought occurred to me: “Were they planning, in the long term, to set up a national office to preapprove curricula?”
Now, that’s EXACTLY what Brookings is calling for:
A privately held Curriculum Thought Police.
If you don’t find this REALLY CHILLING, you aren’t thinking AT ALL.
This is what totalitarianism looks like, folks.
Just when you think it can’t get worse, this.
Here’s the CCSS copyright notice:
http://www.corestandards.org/public-license/
So, when a state adopts the Common Core, it is putting a PRIVATE ORGANIZATION in charge. The state is adopting “standards” THAT ARE PRIVATELY OWNED/PRIVATELY HELD by two organizations, the CCSSO and the NGA, that can decide WHO CAN AND CANNOT USE THOSE AND HOW.
Isn’t anyone concerned about this!!!!??????
Most telling is what the CCSSO and the NGA did NOT do.
They did not place these “standards” in the public domain.
But I thought the whole point of the common core is that it was supposed to spur educational innovation in the form of new products?
I think perhaps what everyone is missing is that there is no rule that children need textbooks, workbooks and other scripted paraphernalia in order to learn. In fact many prestigious private schools tout the fact that they use primary sources and open ended materials as much as possible. My oldest child learned how to add, subtract, multiply, and do long division using the following materials: basic counting manipulatives, stones and a placemat, square dancing, jump roping, mental math games, dictation, paper and pencil, chalk and chalkboard and simple, one page worksheets the teacher wrote herself. The approach was inexpensive, engaging and effective. The highest cost was to have a highly trained and committed teacher who could teach using all of these modalities to help the students learn. I say, since you’re going to have a teacher anyway, why not put the money there in the form of training and mentorship rather than in the educational products commodity chain? Apart from the fact that it human beings like this better, it is cheaper!!!
Well, yes, but, how is Pearson supposed to profit off that?
The whole point of the Common Core, Emmy, was to protect and help create monopolies in educational materials. There is a reason why the monopolists paid to have these created.
All the basal subjects are taught primarily from a textbook, accompanied by lots and lots of ancillary materials. Pixels are cheaper than paper is, so the monopolists want to make that transition because it vastly increases margins, but they need a mechanism by which they can limit competition in a digital textbook era. Thus nationals standards and tests to create economies of scale for marketing, the inBloom database, the copyrighting of the standards, proprietary tablets preloaded with curricula.
You are right to call them out on this, Emmy. That’s the BIG LIE of the ed deform movement. The way to innovation is not via standardization and centralization of command and control, of course.
Lol, Dienne.
I wonder – have there ever been any studies about the per pupil cost of corporate instructional materials? Ever lower costs on such supplies, even if their quality stays the same or better, will never “solve” the “problem” that education is a labor-intensive endeavor.
Unfortunately, Emmy, those figures are now very closely held by the educational publishing houses. When last I worked for one of the big basal publishers, our then CEO held a key meeting at the beginning of his tenure in which he said that almost all the available research on market share and costs in ed book publishing was complete crap.
I can tell you, however, that the per pupil cost for a basal program, especially for a K-6 reading program, is enormous.
Putting together some good stats on this would be a significant undertaking. It would involve a lot of legwork and a huge budget to gather the data.
One of the problems here is that ed book publishers make a lot of special deals, and many of these programs have LITERALLY hundreds of components, many of which are “given away” (bundled for one price).
Wow, Bob, that is shocking. As a taxpayer, I have a right to know that information! After all, it wasn’t the local teachers who were demanding ipads in Los Angeles. They usually have more basic requests: crayons, money (and time!) for field trips, kleenex, various inexpensive art and science supplies, etc. Politicians like to say “we need to stop throwing money at education” but no one ever discusses one of the largest costs that can be controlled.
For example, my eldest child also went directly to library books in language arts. They learned their letters and sounds and when it was time to read paragraphs they opened up some books and read, read, read until they were good at it. I don’t know anything about curriculum design or about instructing special needs students but it seems to me that not all students need to have a Pearson middle man between them and Beverly Cleary or Raold Dahl. Yet every day library budgets are cut and some schools (such as the one my firstborn was slated to attend) don’t even have libraries. Seriously, the school finally resorted to doing a book donation drive just so there could be something other than textbooks for the children. And while neighbors tried to be generous, it was not enough and the selection was limited to whatever community members wanted to purchase or donate. Upper-level chapter books and award-winning children’s literature were absent.
I am as opposed to how testing and he data are being misused as anyone. This is a battle hat has to be won.
But it can’t be won by name calling and rhetoric, hyperbole, that sometimes resembles a certain news outlet. To wit:
“The “man behind the curtain” represents the “weak, impotent, callous, greedy immature leaders” who lust for power and control. ”
True or not, this only preaches to the choir, at best. It does not win support from those we need to convince. Most of us reading this blog know all this already.
This simply is not going to undo things. True or not, it’s not going to hunt at many PTA meetings.
The buy in to the whole data driven thing did not happen without acceptance and support by many people of good intentions. Those people are the ones we have to speak to. They have much time,effort, and even careers invested. It’s not easy to admit ones mistakes.
Diane Ravitch is one who made the great direction change. Her insight into what allowed her to accept that she was on the wrong team could be a model.
We just have to be above the Fordham Foundation.
Peter,
“True or not, this only preaches to the choir, at best. It does not win support from those we need to convince..”
I understand what you are saying here, but this has the ring of let’s not insult our feudal overlords, or they will punish us further.” I personally am a little tired of having to play nice when they are violating the public trust. It’s the frog boiling in the water, it’s the way the Common Core “seemed” supported by “most” teachers.
The fact is that they know what they are doing. They knew “proficient” meant B+ to A when they characterized the NAEP as an indicator of Public school distress. They knew that VAM is (and always has been) a poor indicator of teacher quality, and student accomplishment.
I’m tired of cowering in the corner while they pack off my belongings…
With respect, I think we should be a great deal more indignant.
Agreed. NOTHING will change unless people speak loudly and often in opposition to these deforms. And such a response is entirely appropriate given that the reforms are child abuse.
I don’t think that your inferences necessarily comport with Peter’s intentions; regardless, Peter is the best clarifier of his intentions. My interpretation is that we must ‘take off the gloves’ and take the resistance to ‘reform’ from the blogs and into the communities and battle the ‘reformers’ on their own turf. No where in his post does he imply that we should relate to the ‘reformers’ like feudal lords and “…cower in the corner”. To the contrary, I suspect that his post is actually a call to expand resistance to the ‘reformers’ in as tough a manner as we can muster. I would add the phrase, “by any means necessary”.
John A, I meant no disrespect to Peter (or you for that matter) however phrases like “This simply is not going to undo things,” and ” True or not, it’s not going to hunt at many PTA meetings” strike me a conciliatory. Furthermore the implication that here are “many people of good intentions” behind the corporate movement is naïve. Those with possible good intentions that have bought into corporate reform need to see that their participation in this has produced outrage. We are not, I am not, a rebel without a cause- I have seen the suffering caused first hand, I think the absence of indignation has been used as a sign of consent. I think it warrants outrage not coffee conversation- unless it’s coffee conversation with the French Resistance.
Excellent description of how current society feeds the very fears that makes us the entity behind the curtain. Especially:
“Do not allow this psychological abuse to damage them for life.”
Again, someone calling it for what it is and encouraging us all to seek the courage within to stand up and demand an end to it.
In Germany they called it – Schwarze Padagogik. Now, in the US – Common Core.
First they take the children…..
I’m glad someone appreciated the message in my metaphor.
chilling and appropriate
Mimi, I tend to hang out with people who quibble over various developmentally appropriate forms of education. For all the differences and pros and cons, the approaches are clearly on one side of a certain line. I hadn’t heard the term schwarze padagogik but now I am totally intrigued. Thanks!
Hey, a comment from Toto – who actully pulled the curtain aside to reveal the man behind the curtain – who just happened to be a very bad wizard! Nice post!
As a school counselor, I wrote a professional report for Senator Jane Nelson and the Texas HHSC describing the punitive environment in elementary schools that had resulted from the obsession with testing and data, but no Texas legislators listened. Therefore, during the NPE convention in Austin last week, I was inspired to write this poem with the same message, but in the format of Dr Suess rhyme. More people seem to listen to Dr Suess than the outstanding scholarly research of Dr Linehan and University of Washington re: “invalidating” environment in childhood linked to Borderline Personality Disorder.
Here is a revised copy of my common core protest poem that dianeravitch.net previously posted via fairyprincess78704@gmail.com. As an educator, I felt “prostituted” and “used” to promote the “twisted” agenda of educational “impostors” who had no regard for the psychological impact on the children. I consider this current treatment to children “immoral”, and those teachers who agree and feel “used” to perpetuate it will understand my choice of the “wh” word. (Truth hurts):
We Should Have Listened to the Lorax !
It came in so boldly in very plain sight
That no one reacted with outrage or fright,
The teachers all worked it to lift children’s scores
too busy to notice their role shift to wh – – – .
We thought it was helpful if put to good use
so how could we know it was causing abuse.
It called itself “common” and bragged without shame
That all kids would need it to be just the same.
To measure the contents of what children learn
came methods of strictness all callous and stern.
It claimed to have rigor to help kids succeed,
but most could not see underneath was all GREED.
Its cost became millions – anxiety soared,
while damage to children completely ignored.
It first made a difference and upted some scores
but then it continued with more more and more.
The children were sweet and so nice and polite
They all were submissive without any fight.
They did it to please those they trust to know right.
They did it in spite of their bindings so tight.
They suffered in silence and gave their best try
They never complained or even asked “why”?
…..but some did cry.
Their innocence plundered their self now askew,
They hardened completely while no one even knew.
Their spirits were taken their childhood replaced
A new breed of children – a much meaner race.
Where are those impostors who made up such rules
to torture young children with cruel cunning ruse?
They’re safe in their castles no thoughts of that time,
When children were maimed by their heinous crime.
Our nation is dying this grief is too great
The end of our children will be our last fate.
The Lorax was trying to speak for the trees.
I speak for children….begging….on my knees.
Please notice the children are having distress
Don’t let them suffer the harm from this mess.
This hidden agenda is well on it’s way
to make a police state….that’s all I can say.
…and now I’ve gone away.
Mimi, I read your poem and think of all those earnest, beautiful verses written by folks in New England, a century and a half ago, who were campaigning against the evil that was slavery. Keep it up, and thank you!
Thank you Bob. Like you, I am also inspired by those writers who spoke out against slavery and called it EVIL. I think this is the same EVIL, just a different group in society being targeted for scapegoating. > Children. A democracy can’t survive this damage.
This is what parents think in NC. Survey conducted by Drs. Smith and Imig from University of North Carolina, Wilmington. http://people.uncw.edu/imigs/documents/NCReact_ImigSmith.pdf
While we did not ask respondents to comment about the type and quality of education being delivered in their children’s schools, a significant number of respondents did so in the survey’s “Additional Comments” section. Two related themes in these comments are: 1. Schools no longer foster a joy of learning, and 2. Serious concerns about the amount of standardized testing. What follows are representative quotes.
Theme One: Schools no longer foster a joy of learning.
“I WANT [my son] to receive engaging teaching time each and every day that he is in school in each and every subject area. I WANT him to be excited about reading and math. I WANT him to learn about history and about science. I WANT him to be excited about school and progressing and bettering himself for the future. I DO NOT WANT him to be given a seat on a back burner while the state creates crazy laws and tests in the hopes of improving statewide test scores. The longer the state takes to make changes or end this insanity altogether is just more learning time lost and greater frustration for our children.”
“They can only sit and do worksheets for so long before they lose interest.”
“I am in the process of applying for scholarships to local private schools because I feel like I have no idea what else to do. My child is in first grade and is absolutely miserable. I feel like she is a totally different kid these days. Her teachers/
principal seem like they couldn’t care less that she is reading on a third grade level… yet then my child is reprimanded for talking and “acting out” in class because she is bored out of her mind.”
“I am tired of watching my daughters be used as an experiment for a curriculum that has never even be field tested. I am fed up & so are the majority of parent around here.”
“For the first time I am considering homeschool for my children. I am watching the joy of learning being tested out of my child…My 3rd grader is very smart and reads on a high school level and does math on a middle school level and I worry about him being bored.”
Theme Two: Serious concerns about the amount of standardized testing.
“The amount of standardized testing my daughter did in elementary school was ridiculous. They probably lost a month of instruction time as they reviewed and sat for tests. At many schools, the last weeks of school were severely under utilized
because everything had been crammed in preparation of the test and the last few weeks were just for review or maybe preview for the next grade.”
“As a parent of a “gifted” child, I have grown extremely frustrated this year as I have watched his education be neglected at the expense of “training” his poor classmates to take the EOG test. I feel sorry for his teacher.”
“These 3 weekly tests that my 3rd grader has to take to add to his portfolio each week is ridiculous! He’s already a year behind and the added stress/tests are not fair.”
“Soon, the students will dread going to class knowing that their time will be fi lled with test after test.”
“The amount of testing is out of control.”
Sigh…and eye roll.
Randi Weingarten can say whatever she wants (and she has been) about testing.
But the truth is that testing IS the Common Core, and without it the Common Core standards are merely voluntary. That is NOT what the big boys (Gates, Achieve, Inc. US Chamber f Commerce, Business Roundtable, etc.) want.
So the question is, When are Randi Weingarten (AFT) and Dennis Van Roekel (NEA) going to disavow the Common Core?
The reader is correct, but she failed to advise the public of who is responsible.
Now, this may ruffle some feathers, but consider which ideological philosophy runs public education, its the liberal and progressives.
So, perhaps these folks should be jettisoned taking their failed initiatives with them, and replaced with conservatives. If the problems are as dire as the reader states, it would be foolish
to continue fostering liberal education policies.
Please briefly explain what you mean by “liberal and progressive” ideological philosophy running public education. If you want, you can just mention some authors or books that typify “liberal and progressive ideological philosophy” as short hand.
Is it any wonder, then, that parents might justifiably look for a charter school that doesn’t test to death?
Harlan, That is exactly what the purpose of a Charter school is… To undermine public school. Then they claim how much better than Public School they are because they don’t have to participate in all that idiocy, or they get to do it on their own terms.
Also notice how people defend charter schools as if they are not being used by corporate reformers chip away at what is good.
From the point of view of the parent and kid, the purpose of a charter is to get out of a public school. Why is that undermining the public school? Any more than buying at Burger King is undermining McDonalds?
Education is a product just like any other. The government manufactures some of it, both in traditional public schools and in charters. Some others purchase the product from private providers. Some provide their own through home schooling.
No one should be forced to buy a certain product. That would be like a monopoly. Even the President is backing off on the mandate in Obamacare.
The public school systems made a mistake in embracing NCLB (George Bush getting Ted Kennedy liberal washing for an impossible premise), and then CCSS. Why criticize charters when the state boards, administrations, and some teachers drank the kool aid voluntarily. To say “exterminate charters” is like Jim Jones shooting anyone who wouldn’t drink the poison. It’s a sign of brutal ignorance that so many went along.
And you criticize parents for opting out when they can via charters?
I’m glad to see Moskowitz fighting back so hard. We’ll see if DeBlasio is an Obama type socialist, all talk and no cohones (except smearing his opponents), or whether he has some manly fight in him. Maybe he’ll like angry mothers confronting him who want to get their children a better chance in life through education and are prepared to support the kid in getting it. DeBlasio, the child abuser. A lovely picture.
If you are against public education, you are against democracy, period. It is a public good, not a commodity for the tiny few to rip off taxpayers.
Charter schools are garbage, just like regular private schools are utter garbage. They should be scrapped.
In Utah, that doesn’t work, because charter schools are required to do the same testing that the regular public schools do.
Harlan,
Yes, That is a good argument in favor of charter schools. It’s the same argument one makes when they say “To hell with you! I’m gonna get mine!” This is perfectly consistent with market based thinking – Ergo, Corporate Reform.
Schools hold society to a certain standard. That basis is consistently good, and has ultimately produced a free thinking and engaged society. Making school compulsory is the way society hold its intellect to a standard. Charters do not have public good as their goal. They, for the most part, are profit driven, student skimming, and segregating. What we have with charters is essentially snake oil salesmen funded by taxes.
Public schools are a privilege provided through taxes. If people do not want this for their children they are free to opt out, but they should then have to pay for it themselves. When we reduce education to just another product (like any other) add parents who want good schools for their sons and daughters, insert charters that are beholding to parents to keep their children enrolled- you have a recipe for an ignorant society.
Thank you, James, for replying with a real argument rather than personal vilification.
If your major premise were true, I would have to agree with you. Unfortunately, the public schools generally, though I’m sure there are exceptions, have not held themselves to a high standard of educating for democratic citizenship under the constitution of the Republic, or to a very high standard of critical thinking either, or even to a high standard of educating for employability (as Germany does).
I’m not sure it’s their fault, considering the wide range of student they have to deal with, but when I hear Diane say that “the public schools are not failing” I have to answer, some are not, but some are. My prima facie evidence of the failure of the public schools overall to educate the electorate over the last 30 years for constitutional self government is the election, TWICE, of Barack Obama. Probably that will not seem like “evidence” to you. I still can’t help thinking that if the schools had been doing their job, so many people would not have been taken in by his empty speech. He made no secret of what he wanted to do, but most voters of the younger sort weren’t able to interpret it because they didn’t have the background in citizenship and the constitution which would have allowed them to properly evaluate his policies and the limitations of his thinking. Nor, judging by the positions of the posters on this blog, did their teachers either.
As a side note, it might be worth discussing whether everyone isn’t out for themselves, so that a claim that one is operating out of a higher moral purpose as opposed to just wanting to protect their union job would be moot at a minimum.
The extreme example was the Communist Party of the USSR, which purportedly acting in the interests of the serfs and workers, really was operated for the benefit of the party elites. Venezuela is another example where a populist president is really out only to enrich himself. Likewise, Putin and the other Russian oligarchs, who claim to be defending the Russian speakers of the Crimea against neo-nationalist feeling in Ukraine, when more likely they want control of the oil pipelines and coal in Eastern Ukraine which would cross an independent Ukraine, which would gain leverage and diminish the ability of the oligarchs to exploit the Russian state for their own power and wealth. That’s the normal fascist pattern, a collaboration between government and business, and we see President Obama trying to implement it in the country as well. You should consider joining the tea party patriots in repudiating Obama and his oligarchs.
The literary example of civic ignorance is ANIMAL FARM, where the pigs who led the revolt of the animals against the farmers, turn into the farmers. The public schools, which used to teach freedom and independence now teach knuckle under to the monopoly system, which is as close to promoting tyranny as one can get. Yes, I compare the radical voices here fulminating against the wealthy to the pigs. The answer is not for one part of the oligarchy to beat up on the other, but to get the schools out from under both.
I just do not believe anyone is operating out of a higher moral purpose than his own self interest, and that includes a few clergymen whom I have known. I don’t except teachers in the public schools, no matter how much good they are doing with the disabled and the poor in individual classrooms. Even if they do their jobs well, they still see charters as an economic threat to them, and so, naturally fight against them in what amounts to protectionism of their monopoly. I liked the public schools I attended. They didn’t educate for freedom and the self governing citizen, but at least they didn’t do too much harm when it came to minimal skills, verbal and mathematical. Even the private schools I attended and at which I have worked were not much better from the point of transcendent political education. They may have been a bit better in terms of SAT scores, but in terms of educating the minds and hearts necessary for self-government that the founders envisioned as requisite for keeping the country free, they were in wretched harmony with the public schools. This I why I support charters, because what is pernicious about American education is its system. The whole thing must change in order for there to be renewal.
Trade unions are not any different in motivation by self interest, even though their rhetoric is big on protecting the worker. They were against NAFTA, as I was, but failed to stop it, and so jobs are exported. This leaves aside any discussion of whether the trade unions injured themselves by being too greedy. I think they did, but GM, Ford, and Chrysler are complicit in signing unsupportable contracts.
In any case, I know of at least one terrible charter, one middle-good, and one superb charter. I see them as essential to breaking the strangle hold the teachers’ unions have over public education, and the public school systems over education. That’s why Eva Moskowitz is fighting DeBlahsio so hard. It is an existential struggle for control of the schools between the parents on the one side and the bureaucrats who presently run and staff the public school systems.
Yes, Pearson, inBloom, etc. are trying to make money off of the CCSS, and the charter movement, and may in fact be trying to do so to destroy the public schools’ monopoly on education funding. To the extent the public schools cooperate with the testing regimen the will be cooperating with schooling as tyranny.
The only hopeful sign I have seen recently is the civil disobedience of the teachers in the two schools in Illinois who have refused to administer the state test. I signed the petition in support of them. I’d love to see the public school systems of the country restored to solvency and effectiveness, but the intransigent, anti-capitalist, anti-business, anti-parent, and in NYC, anti-poor kids way the defenders are talking, I don’t see their efforts as working, or even deserving to work.
Bravo, Bravo and Bravo!
This absolutely brilliant piece says it all. I’m almost speechless. This summarized the current state of not only our schools, but of our entire social and political order.
Our home that we share, the United States of America, has become a place where people no longer trust one another. This manifests itself in many ways, from those people who hate and despise any governmental program or policy to those who feel that someone else is always looking for a free ride and trying to take advantage of them and their money, to those obsessed few who believe that they must have a weapons cache and arsenal at their home in order to protect themselves against “the other”.
The mania for certainty, for absolute assurance, for things that are perceived as completely accurate and reliable is off the charts in today’s highly dysfunctional social milieu.
Anything that offers even a semblance of reliability and “proof” is eagerly embraced in today’s America; even when our best judgement and instincts are telling us to question these claims and this inhumane system, we fearfully go along, paradoxically terrified of being all alone on the outside, scorned by all others.
So the writer is all too accurate in describing the world in which we Americans currently live.
The public school system does well when the entire community it serves is engaged and united, committed to the success of their local public schools.
Our schools cannot succeed, indeed our society, our country, cannot succeed In an atmosphere of doubt, suspicion and insecurity.
it’s time to rediscover the rich and proud tradition of our nation’s public schools and how they have enabled us over the decades to command a leadership role in technology, industry, entertainment and so much more.
But as this writer so brilliantly makes clear, we must first learn to trust one another and stop relying on some mechanism or process as some sort of false prophet that will supposedly lead us to our future paradise.
It turns out, however, that a lot of people truly can’t be trusted. Rebuilding trust will take a long time.
Naturally….because we’ve got Fox news, and crackpots like Limbaugh and Levin and Hannity to fuel the flames of fear and distrust….and there are plenty of pinheads who buy into the nonsense.
I always enjoy seeing a post from you, PSP.
Just because we’re paranoid doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be.
Who’s paranoid? Even paranoids have real enemies.
LOL. Well said, Harlan!
The Move On testing boycott petition is here:
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/support-the-testing-boycott
Harlan,
FYI…”Public school systems” DID NOT embrace NCLB any more than all the rest of this nonsense that has followed since that time. That is, if you do consider TEACHERS to be an integral part of “public school systems”. Mimi, your writing is so very descriptive of our country and society today. Thank you! I hope that we can all rediscover our strength before it’s too late!
A number of years ago, I worked for one of the large textbook houses. From time to time, an all-hands memo would go out from our CEO.
It became clear, quickly, that whatever the CEO said in one of these town hall memos was precisely the opposite of the truth. If the CEO sent a memo saying that there was no truth to the rumor that some division was going to be sold, that meant that the division was being shopped around and that within a month or two, the division would be gone. If the CEO sent a memo saying that he was sad to announce that against his wishes, Ms. X had decided to leave the company to pursue other endeavors, that meant that the CEO had fired Ms. X. If the CEO said that sales of some product were expected to be great in the coming year, that meant that the product wasn’t meeting expectations and was in serious trouble.
In no time at all, I would overhear my staff joking about this every time a new all-hands memo went out. Those memos were an incredibly precise mirror image of the truth, and people were smart enough to figure that out quite quickly.
Well, that’s true of just about every bit of official spin regarding the Common Core. If you want to find out the truth about the Common Core, just read what the CCSSO describes on its website as the “myths” about the CC$$.
That the standards were developed by teachers means that teachers had almost nothing to do with them, that a few teachers were selected to rubber stamp the work done by amateurs from outside the profession to hack those standards together.
That the standards were freely adopted by the states means that the USDOE gave the states no choice but to adopt them or suffer the penalties that would come from not getting their NCLB waivers.
That the new standards will unleash powerful market forces to encourage innovation means that they will create markets at a scale at which only monopolistic providers of unimaginative educational materials can compete. It also means that in due time the CCSSO and the NGA will start using the legal system to control the market for educational materials by deciding what materials will and will not receive its OK to claim alignment with its PRIVATELY HELD standards.
That the states are free to adapt the standards means that they can’t change them, that the most they can do is to add a few, but very few, standards to the list, amounting to no more than 15 percent of the total, but that states must accept the standards, otherwise, without change (and without any mechanisms for change in the future other than the whim of the private organizations that created the standards to begin with).
That plutocrats have no seat at the table where educational policy is made (as per Arne Duncan) means that a small group of plutocrats paid for and directed the creation of the standards, the revised FERPA regulations, the new tests, the new VAM systems, and the technology blueprint being carried out today.
That the standards are not a curriculum means, in math, that they are a curriculum outline and in ELA that they dramatically narrow the possibilities for curricula.
That the new national tests introduce breakthroughs in question types in order to test high-order thinking means that some minor variants of fill-in-the-blank, matching, ordering, and other stock bubble test questions types have been introduced.
That US schools are falling behind on international tests, thus making the standards and new national assessments necessary, means that US schools appear to be performing poorly if one does not correct for the socioeconomic status of the kids taking the tests (in which case, US schools and students lead the world).
That our Secretary of Education is the chief officer of the national public school system means that he is the guy who has been put in charge of dismantling that system.
That we’ve seen improvements due to the accountability system put in place by NCLB means that scores have been almost flat and that standards-and-testing hasn’t worked, at all, to change overall outcomes or to put a dent in the achievement gap.
That poverty is not destiny means that the powers that be are going to ignore poverty and use the whips of VAM and testing instead.
In other words, our national education policies are being formulated and enforced by LIARS–by folks who specialize in that variety of lying known as equivocation.
And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter with us in a double sense
–William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Clarification: the new national tests are being paid for by your tax dollars, but a LOT of money from the plutocrats is being spent for incidentals connected with those tests.
Reblogged this on Middletown Voice.
Great post. Insightful analysis of the man behind the curtain. It is we.
Great post. Insightful analysis of the man behind the curtain. It is we.
If tomorrow we wanted Common Core gone the pressure would ensure it’s demise.
We fear our children won’t be able to compete. News flash: Education is not a competitive sport.
Interesting article on Huff about the over use of technology and it’s effect on children. Especially since most of the new testing and teaching methods include a massive increase in technology time for students (and yes I’m a tech teacher and even I believe this article):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cris-rowan/10-reasons-why-handheld-devices-should-be-banned_b_4899218.html
I agree with the writer that “if parents do not advocate for their children, who will?”
However, I need help knowing how to advocate for my child. Who is going to help?
My husband and I have struggled with the demons of Common Core this year, watching our 9 year old son sink into what looks like depression. We can’t afford private school, so I have coerced, offered rewards, and tried everything to encourage him. He has developed sleep problems, moody and irritable, and hardly eats. He has impulsive aggression with his younger sister. He has lost his previous love of creative play, especially with Legos, and now is chronically bored unless he has a video game. I have banned video games since I think it is an escape and he is becoming addicted. He is withdrawing from me, just as he is from school. When his father is home on weekends, he tries to talk to him, but it is more like “you don’t have a choice, just man up and do your best”. It seems like we can’t change the school environment, so we have to change our son to adapt to it.
Every morning is a struggle just to get him out the door, and every night is another dismal episode of boring homework (always worksheets with the “common core” logo at the bottom). He cries frequently at home, and even broke down two times at school this year when he became frustrated. I know that caused a loss of dignity for him, and I met with his teacher to ask for help. I can sense the teacher feels pressured too, and is concerned about his test scores. He says son daydreams in class. I was referred to take him to a child guidance center for counseling, but that is not helping. A therapist can’t change the school either, so is just trying to help him adapt to it.
I recognize it is not possible for me to make him like school, and forcing him to go makes me feel like a bully. He may be more sensitive than some children, but I think public schools need to be happy welcoming places for children, and not like “work camps” that make them feel worthless and trapped. This has caused our family ongoing stress and fear, and it seems to be getting worse.
This is indeed a “psychological plague” that is taking my child’s spirit, and I think there
are millions of other children out there experiencing similar emotional distress from CC.
Now I ask this question to Arne Duncan:
“Is it healthy and realistic to expect the nation’s children to adapt to an environment that is obviously causing them psychological distress?”