Our Education Spring Goes National: Report from Fairtest

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1. wgersen says:

   March 26, 2014 at 8:46 am

   Reblogged this on Network Schools – Wayne Gersen and commented:
   To quote Smoky Robinson: “Like a snowball rolling down the side of a snow covered ill…. it’s growing”

   Reply
2. Jamie says:

   March 26, 2014 at 8:58 am

   If we were to demand that education reform and high stakes testing be applied equally to all schools, public, private, homeschool, virtual, will we get attention from those who are pushing it through? If President Obama has to force this plan on the Friends School his children attend, and Arne Duncan has to push it on his children’s Montessori school, and Bill Gates has to force it on the private school he attended, will they understand the damage it’s doing?

   Reply
   • Joanne Simons says:

     March 26, 2014 at 9:30 am

     Nah. Don’t think so, Jamie. Almost all these dudes, so intent on “fixing” other kids’ schools, attended fancy, expensive private schools. They have no clue what goes on in public schools — just that they and their off-spring deserve something better. We are the unwashed masses. They have no intention of “understanding” what they’re doing. They “know” they’re right. How else to explain their superiority? We are the other. Demand that this horrific, damaging “rephorm” hoax stops — not that be applied to more kids.

     Reply
     • Jamie says:

       March 26, 2014 at 9:43 am

       Still, I would like to hear their response as to why what’s good for our kids, isn’t good for their kids.

3. Daniel Spaniel says:

   March 26, 2014 at 9:46 am

   They would never answer that question. They would just say, “Their kids aren’t fair game.” The mainstream wouldn’t accept a reporter or organization attacking a billionaires kids. It would be easy to spin that in the favor of the billionaire. It’s best to focus on the unscientific and unproven testing, as that poll on Today shows, the public despises testing.

   Reply
   • Michael Fiorillo says:

     March 26, 2014 at 10:34 am

     Their usual response is to try to misdirect attention away from their rank hypocrisy and feign being insulted, and then follow up by saying that their children should be left out of the debate. New York Sate education commissioner John King, who comes from a charter school behaviorist boot camp (Uncommon Schools), tried this when it was pointed out that he sends his own children to a Montessori school.

     Of course, raising the issue has nothing to do with these people’s children, whose privacy should of course be respected, but the huge divide between what so-called reformers insist upor their own children, compared to what they’re imposing on other people’s children.

     Reply
4. Susan Lee Schwartz says:

   March 26, 2014 at 9:59 am

   I have said this before and I all say it again, because this testing mania HAS BEEN ORCHESTRATED BY THE INDUSTRY THAT PLUNDERS PUBLIC EDUCATION FOR PROFIT. The media, owned by the people who profit from testing and charter schools pushes the lies about its purpose and its result, and like a snowball rolling down hill, as mgerson says, on this blog says is unstoppable.

   I WAS THERE BEFORE when tests were used by ME, ito inform my practice and plan for each child’s progress. I saw the top-down mandate bombs arrive.

   HERE IS THE POINT THAT I MAKE OVER AND OVER:
   The entire national conversation about testing came about when Bush co-opted the word “standards’ and linked it to tests, which NEVER are part of the National Standards research. THAT third level research has DISAPPEARED…LITERALLY, IS NOT HEARD ANYWHERE.

   There REAL New Standards, the zillion dollar Pew funded New Standards research was crystal clear regarding the evaluation component in a genuine learning environment (i.e. classroom)!, “The Principles of Learning”, which was the actual thesis/theory by Dr Lauren Resnick BECAME the NEW Standards Research never mentioned standardized test” not once!

   I know this because my practice was chosen and studied as the middle school cohort, in NYC, for the Harvard research, conducted by the LRDC (Univ. of Pittsburgh).

   In the workshops that the cohorts (and the teachers in District 2) attended while the research was ongoing in NYC, it was CLEAR: Assessment of any kind– quizzes, tests, portfolio evaluations etc, were essential for the CLASSROOM teacher-practitioner, in order to plan to MEET THE NEEDS and learning styles of a diverse population of students.

   The propaganda machine and their false pundits have created a national conversation about evaluating students and teaching, instead of one that focuses on WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE…which by the way was proven by the REAL, GENUINE, AUTHENTIC National Standards.

   Part of the public confusion, is that how the human brain learns skills is a complex process and needs explanation by genuine professionals, just as medicine and science is explained by the practitioners and academics in the profession. But when it comes to this complicated human process, the procedures are mandated by corporate entities, businessmen, selling their magic elixirs; teachers are then mandated to use what administrators COMMAND… and then, the teacher-practioner is blamed when the children fail. Would a doctor be blamed for the continuing illness or death of patients if they could not practice their profession, but were told by the hospital director to use this procedure or that medicine?

   Submitted on Wednesday, Mar 26, 2014 at 8:52:22 AM

   Reply
5. LLC1923 says:

   March 26, 2014 at 1:05 pm

   Readers of Diane’s blog may find Larry Berger’s quote, Education Week, 2009 interesting. Larry’s advocating for corporate-style national standards so he won’t have to deal with a “different investment for Indiana than for Illinois.”

   http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/01/28/19rd_ep.h28.html?tmp=1421851557

   ‘Scientifically Based’ Giving Way to ‘Development,’ ‘Innovation’

   “To have 50 different states each pursuing a distinct set of educational standards creates an environment in which there is an enormous amount of expense associated with making an innovation interoperable across all those sets of standards,” said Larry Berger, the founder and chief executive officer of Wireless Generation, a New York City-based educational technology company. “You find yourself having to do a different investment for Indiana than for Illinois.”

   Published Online: January 27, 2009

   As CEO of Wirele$$ Generation (now owned by Rupert Murdoch), Berger foisted his TPRI and DIEBELS digital device snake oil on countless K-3 students by acquiring millions Reading First grants. The federal Reading First “investigation” did not include Wireless Generation thanks to his Texas buddy, Sandy Kress. Berger has ZERO classroom experience, but always sits at the US Department of Corporate Education’s table.

   A former lobbyist for Wireless Generation, Sandy Kress is a registered lobbyist for Pearson, Amplify (inBloom), Teach for America, etc.

   Reply
6. KrazyTA says:

   March 26, 2014 at 11:03 pm

   What do the self-styled “education reformers” who are leading the “new civil rights movement of our time” say when asked why they ensure for THEIR OWN CHILDREN an education vastly superior to what they mandate for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN?

   Behold, Governor Christ Christie being interviewed by Piers Morgan, 6/14/2011.

   [start quote]

   MORGAN: Mark Zuckerberg gave $100 million to education, put into schools.
   This has been a huge deal for you, this battle you have with education unions. They’ve accused you of bullying them. You’ve been pretty vigorous in your response, saying that, you know, if you want to go into teaching, you know the pay grade, there’s no point squealing about it when you get there. If you don’t like it, don’t go into it.

   CHRISTIE: Listen, what I really want is accountability. And I think most great teachers want accountability. I mean, the teachers I had in this school that helped make me who I am, they would never fear accountability because they knew they were doing a great job, and they watched children develop under their watch.

   And all I’m saying is that every child in New Jersey deserves the kind of education I got in this building. Every one of them does. And we’re paying more per pupil per year than any state in America. So, we’re paying for it.

   MORGAN: One of your most famous residents recently who was complimentary and scathing about you in equal measure. And I won’t say who it was. Where she was scathing when she said, if he believes so much in the education system in this state, why doesn’t he send his children to a public school?

   CHRISTIE: Well, that’s none of her business. That’s my choice, and my wife’s choice. We happen to believe that a religious education is an important part of an overall education for our children. So, we’ve decided to send our children to Catholic school because we believe that.

   It’s no shot on the public schools. I’m a graduate of the public schools. My wife’s a graduate of parochial schools.

   When our child became 5 years old, I wanted him to go to public school. She wanted him to go to parochial school. All of our kids go to parochial school.

   So, you can figure out who wields the power in the Christie household.

   And so — but I’ve come to agree with her that I think it’s an important part of our children’s growth as human beings. And so, we’ve made that choice.

   But guess what? I still pay $38,000 a year in property taxes, most of which go to the public school system in my town. And we don’t utilize it. And I don’t complain about it because that’s my responsibility as a citizen of my town and my state.

   But then don’t tell me that I can’t be serious about public education because I don’t send my children there. Every child is my responsibility in this state. And that’s the kind of liberal know- nothing thinking that just drives me crazy.

   MORGAN: In that exchange, I could see the fire welling up inside you.
   CHRISTIE: Well, that kind of stuff annoys me.

   MORGAN: I could see a bit of the real Christie there.

   CHRISTIE: Well, that’s just part of the real Christie because what you were seeing before is the real Christie, too. You’re not just one type of person. And neither am I.

   MORGAN: What do you think are the biggest misconceptions about you?

   CHRISTIE: That I’m running around always being tough and angry and yelling and screaming. But if you bring up my children and my choice and my wife’s choice about how we school our children and that somehow that diminishes my voice and my leadership on education, that’s such baloney, I can’t stand it. So, then you are going to see a little fire in response to that.

   [end quote]

   Link: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/06/14/interview_with_new_jersey_governor_chris_christie_110221.html

   Evade. Switch the topic. Claim victimhood. Whine.

   Do anything but answer the question.

   And ask yourselves: do this pass the “grit” and “determination” test?

   Or is Dee Dee’s question itself an answer: “Have they no shame?????”

   I think not.

   😎

   P.S. Please excuse this long posting.

   Reply

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