Louis C.K. Is a comedian with a huge following. He has more than 3 million followers on Twitter. More important, he has two young daughters in the New York City public schools. He vented his rage against the Common Core tests in. Series of tweets that have now been reported in many new après. This one appeared in Salon
Here is a story in the New York Daily News.
Here is the New York Post.
I noticed the flare-up on Twitter but had no idea of Louis’s following. Sometimes it takes the righteous indignation of a celebrity to get the attention of the mainstream media. Otherwise, they just print Arne Duncan’s press releases.
This was his first tweet, which appeared yesterday morning.
“My kids used to love math. Now it makes them cry. Thanks standardized testing and common core!”
9:00 AM – 28 Apr 2014
When the comedians get angry at Common Core, watch out!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This in the Long Island Press links Louis CK with NY’s own Dr. Mark Naison. http://www.longislandpress.com/2014/04/29/louis-c-k-common-core-makes-my-kids-cry/
Diane, I do not know if you would accept, but I have been wishing that Bill Maher would invite you on his show. He has had Michelle Rhee on — he didn’t drink her Kool-Aid, but he didn’t give her a hard enough time, either. His sister is a teacher — in New Jersey, I believe.
Yes! Yes! Who can speak to that sister and get the invitation sent?
When you want to laugh you read main stream news, when you want the truth, ask a comedian.
When Louis CK talks, people notice. Arne Duncan does not what those demographics scrutinizing Common Core because they represent the power of intelligent ridicule–and more importantly, directed anger.
When Common Core is mocked by someone with the cultural and intellectual stature of Louis CK, the emperor stands naked; and, in this case, we’ll find Duncan and Obama and Gates trying to maintain their modesty in front of those they always felt were their peers.
The hubris of Common Core will bring the requisite humiliation. So be it.
Looking forward to the time we can quote Groucho vis a vis Common Core:
“Either He’s Dead Or My Watch Has Stopped.”
Geronimo: CC and it’s associated hazing rituals called standardized testing remind me of a bad drama—
“I didn’t like the play but then I saw it under adverse circumstances—the curtain was up.”
Quoted directly from the Marxist playbook used by the self-styled “education reformers.”
¿? Groucho. The famous one.
Although the way the “new civil rights movement of our time” is ruining this country, people may start taking a liking to another one…
😎
I’ve seen some complain that he isn’t an authority and we shouldn’t invite him “into the fold.” He’s a father. He was speaking as a frustrated parent as many do across the country. He just happens to have several million people listening! I promise more than a few people became aware of the issues surrounding Common Core after his tweets yesterday.
real activists no doubt.
That’s exactly how parents here sound, too. They know it’s different, ratcheting up, with testing and test prep but they can’t pin it down.
I don’t think he should have to be an “authority”. He’s not setting policy or discussing some aspirational, theoretical “ed reform” – he’s talking about one third grader and one school district and what he’s experiencing. He doesn’t have any duty to discern the theory and opine. His reality is individual and personal.
I like him for saying he loves public schools. Not a popular opinion right now, I don’t think, judging by the coverage and discussion of public schools which is relentlessly negative (if they’re mentioned at all) as if we’re all trapped in public schools and we’d bolt in a second given half a chance. That isn’t true. It’s nice someone said it.
Parents are the most powerful force we have against the punitive testing movement!
Louis C.K. has 3,400,000 followers.
make that 3,400,000 + 1!
That test-prep material looks all too familiar. It is unfortunate that Chancellor Fariña and DOE principals haven’t taken more forceful steps to put an end to test prep.
More forceful than the steps they’ve already taken to put an end to test prep?
That is a fair point, Flerp. Here is the extent of what Chancellor Fariña has done to mitigate test prep, to my knowledge: http://earlychildhoodnyc.org/newswatch/letter-to-principals-from-nyc-schools-chancellor-carmen-farina/
“I know I can count on you!”
@Tim, I’m not sure how to take her suggestion about keeping tests in perspective. They’re used to evaluate schools, teachers, and students (in Ohio, it’s currently a minimum of 50% of a teacher’s evaluation).
Ohio Algebra Teacher II, I’ve seen this response before, that test prep is justifiable because test scores may be used to evaluate teachers. I strongly disagree with this stance.
Test prep is wildly out of control in NYC DOE schools–at most, it effectively replaces huge chunks of the actual curriculum for 1-2 months or more before the exams. No school is immune–traditional, progressive, rich, poor, unzoned, selective. Louis CK’s kids attend a school that is legendarily progressive, and they’re doing the same crappy test prep as everyone else.
Kids aren’t crying and pissing themselves because they are facing a challenging test; they are crying and pissing themselves because the test is the culmination of a miserable, long, and tense stretch of test prep. Unlike the tests themselves, deciding whether or not to test prep–and how much–is something entirely under the control of individual districts, schools, and teachers. It cheats kids of a real education and there’s no evidence that it works.
Fortunately NYS just passed a law that as of next year will restrict test prep to no more than 1% of the school year,although it remains to be seen how that will be enforced.
I’m hearing you, Tim. I don’t know quite what goes on with the test prep you’re talking about. I know with the kids I teach, review is necessary to have a fighting chance to do their best on the test. If a teacher knows review makes a significant difference on test scores and their evaluations are dependent on those scores, what’s a teacher to do? We’re not scheduled for the PARCC tests until next year, so I’ve yet to be in the position, but I expect to have a great amount of test prep. Of course, the curriculum is so vast, that I’ll have to make decisions between test prep and first-time coverage of certain topics (or some combination of the two).
Bottom line is that many teachers are in no-win situations. Out of curiosity, Tim, are you a teacher?
No, I’m not a teacher. My kids attend traditional NYC DOE district schools. I’m just a little bit less satisfied with the experience than Louis CK seems to be.
Tim, I salute you as an involved and concerned parent. I also cherish you as a powerful force against the current system.
I really do respect and consider your points about test prep. Being a teacher myself, I think I have more empathy for the teacher’s rock/hard place situation, but regardless of how teachers are evaluated, I don’t find anything worth making the student experience miserable. I will take the low evaluation and possible termination before I do that.
But these tests (especially PARCC’s) are incredibly demanding, and teachers jobs really are on the line. In Ohio, you can’t be in anything above the second-lowest category if your test scores are too low, and there’s legislation under consideration for experienced teachers (10 years or more) to not be allowed to be in the 2nd lowest category (“developing”) more than once. That same legislation (not passed) includes further language that has teachers in the lowest category for consecutive years will no longer be allowed to teach Ohio students.
And, even if you won’t be fired, who really wants to be in the lowest categories? What does that do to your credibility as a teacher? How do you prepare for failing tax levies where jobs will certainly be on the line and seniority no longer protects you (evaluations will dictate who stays and who goes)?
So I see where you’re coming from. I hope you’ll continue to use your energy to fight the system that puts teachers….and thus, students (and parents)…in this environment.
All test prep invalidates the results from a test. The test is supposed to be a sample of student knowledge acquired through instruction, not knowledge acquired for the specific purpose of passing the test.
Not sure I agree with this Laura. Many great students do tons of test prep for exams before, during, and after college. I sure did, and I know test prep is essential in many successful AP classes. To the extent it benefits retention, it can be a positive. Now, maybe I’m missing exactly what the test prep being referred to consists of, but I wouldn’t categorically say all test prep is bad. And, as long as teachers/schools are going to be evaluated based on these tests, I think it’s asking a lot to forgo preparing for the tests.
Ask any NYS high school student what they do during the months of May and June. They prep for Regents exams, primarily by using “old” (previously administered) tests. Its a standard routine, and not necessarily a bad one. The teacher can make review painless and valuable, and even interesting. Same with AP courses, except the schedule is pushed back due to early May test dates.
“All test prep invalidates the results from a test.”
NO!
How is it possible to invalidate the invalid?
Wilson has proven that the processes of educational standards and standardized testing is so fraught with epistemological and ontological errors that any any results from said process are COMPLETELT INVALID. Start with invalidity end with invalidity.
To understand why read his “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A quality cannot be quantified. Quantity is a sub-category of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category by only a part (sub-category) of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as one dimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing we are lacking much information about said interactions.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it measures “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Just curious,
Does the NYC prohibition on test prep extend to the NYC charters?
I seem to recall several post about charter students becoming” little test taking machines”, or some such. That still happening?
Anyway.
Lets be realistic.
As long as schools (and many around here love to cite test scores to comment on schools) and teachers are evaluated by scores (again, how many post have we seen where teacher test scores are posted, discussed and picked over), it really is asking a lot for teachers to forgo test prep.
And remember, evaluations are based on growth. So the precious snowflakes of the well off and well educated are not just expected to pass, but improve from year to year. If they don’t improve enough, teacher gets a bad evaluation.
Bottom line, as Ohio Alg. Teacher said, teachers are put in a no win situation.
Maybe we could deemphasize the tests themselves and the test prep will take care of itself.
Thanks.
It isn’t clear to me whether the new law places the same restriction on charter schools–it depends whether or not charters considered to be an individual school district (which I believe they are). Regardless, if people derisively refer to NYC charter schools as test-prep factories, they should be aware that many, many traditional district schools, including some of the most sought-after, high-performing, and progressive schools, are doing just as much test prep as charters.
I’m aware of the overemphasis on test scores, the criticisms of VAM, and the pressure being put on teachers. None of these excuse or justify the practice of replacing real teaching and a real curriculum with test prep. This is very basic, two-wrongs-don’t-make-a-right kind of stuff. Districts, schools (charters, district, private, whatever), and teachers who engage in excessive test prep have no right to claim that they have the best interests of students in mind, plain and simple.
It really comes down to what you consider “excessive,” Tim. Without that word, I can only respectfully disagree with your post. There has to be preparation for the tests, and to at least some level, that’s probably a good thing. Agreed that there’s surely a tipping point. At the same time, you can’t ask teachers or students to go into these tests without doing everything they REASONABLY can to get ready for them. It goes beyond teacher evaluations. My wife teaches 3rd grade, and her students will be held back if they don’t score highly enough.
The NYC DOE elementary schools that engage in the LEAST amount of test prep start prepping for the exams right after the winter break in February. This involves at least a period every day (50 min) of doing blatant, unadulterated test prep–bubble worksheets, practice tests, discussing test strategies, etc, and it is in addition to generally “teaching to the test” and test prep that is integrated into the rest of the instructional day, and test prep that’s assigned as homework. Whatever bare-bones science and “social studies” instruction that occurs during the rest of year is shunted aside during the prep window–it’s all math and ELA all the time.
There may be some exceptions, but this would be a bare minimum baseline for 95% of DOE schools. There are many, many traditional district schools that spend way more than 50 minutes a day on prep and start up their regiment earlier in the school year. I agree that some degree of prep is warranted, but whatever the appropriate level is, I can’t see it from where things stand now. A week, maybe, just to familiarize kids with testing formats and time frames?
Tim — how do you know this? At the risk of seeming uninvolved, I have to say that I have nowhere near this kind of detailed knowledge of what’s happening in class during the test prep period. It’s all kind of a black box to me.
Tim, I certainly agree that what you describe (and I believe you) is outrageous. What a perversion of the system…and maybe a predictable one. Not sure what a proper amount of test prep is (the new tests do a very good job making it difficult to game them without actual knowledge — maybe too good).
I think the bottom line is that the system has to be changed. Unfortunately, I see it getting worse before it gets better. I may be biased, but I think the policy makers are far more to blame than the teachers (not sure of your opinion on this)…and have far more control to do something about fixing the system.
Flerp, basically just from asking around and talking to people I know at a variety of schools. I’m absolutely making some deductive leaps: I have a reliable grasp on the prepping process at some very different schools that you’d never imagine would either need to or want to do lots of prep. I figure if they’re doing that much of it, pretty much everyone else has to be, too.
Just found this timely article in today’s paper: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/01/education/test-prep-endures-in-new-york-schools-despite-calls-to-ease-it.html
Further to my “black box” comment above, this is one of many questions that I genuinely don’t know the answer to:
And “test prep” is limited to 3 and a half days next year? I have a real hard time imagining that happening, at least not without some fine parsing of the meaning of “test prep.”
We need to stay focused, not funny, deadly serious, can not be cheapened by mass media. It is not just Common Core.
Erin,
I was going to suggest inviting him “into the fold”. I hope he continues to speak out as a frustrated parent. It will carry more weight with the public. I wonder whether he is aware of this forum.
It is the parents that teachers are relying on to be their voices. Please help spread the word that the “reform” movement in education is harmful to kids and kills the joy of learning and teaching, both precious gifts to behold.
Who is the public? Do they vote?, take to the streets? The public are the proles. This forum has not done a small fraction of what parents are doing in the streets.
Speaking of Common Core testing, Pearson Math will be administered tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday for grades 3 thru 8 here in NYS. Over 34,000 opt outs for ELA .
It will be interesting to see how much the opt out numbers increase this week.
The exam itself is another story. This will be the first, full fledged CC aligned math test administered in NY. If you read the 8th grade standards, they sound fairly routine and innocuous:
The Number System
• Know that there are numbers that are not
rational, and approximate them by rational
numbers.
Expressions and Equations
• Work with radicals and integer exponents.
• Understand the connections between
proportional relationships, lines, and linear
equations.
• Analyze and solve linear equations and pairs of
simultaneous linear equations
Functions
• Define, evaluate, and compare functions.
• Use functions to model relationships between
quantities.
Geometry
Understand congruence and similarity using
physical models, transparencies, or geometry
software.
• Understand and apply the Pythagorean
Theorem.
• Solve real-world and mathematical problems
involving volume of cylinders, cones and
spheres.
Statistics and Probability
• Investigate patterns of association in bivariate
data.
In order to make these TRULY RIGOROUS test items, you can count on Pearson applying the “Practices” to the extreme.
Mathematical Practices
1. Make sense of problems and persevere in
solving them.
2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
3. Construct viable arguments and critique
the reasoning of others.
4. Model with mathematics.
5. Use appropriate tools strategically.
6. Attend to precision.
7. Look for and make use of structure.
8. Look for and express regularity in repeated
reasoning.
Throw in word problems that are written in a convoluted and confusing style, with applications of mathematical concepts that no one would ever use in the real world and it all adds up to TRAPS, not tests. Traps designed to confuse, frustrate, trick, wear down., and tire out young test takers into failure.
Parents of NY, do not let the bogus test scores produced by the Pearson math exam be used to dismantle our public schools, intimidate or fire our teachers, and above all do not allow them to define, label, belittle, or embarrass your child. OPT OUT.
If you are a parent of a learning disabled, dyslexic, or ELL student, please do not let the system torture your child with these exams.
Please take the time to read, sign, and circulate the petition entitled:
STOP COMMON CORE TESTING.
Thank you.
http://www.petition2congress.com/15080/stop-common-core-testing/?m=5265435
It is becoming “not cool” to support The Common Core…………and I predict the arrival of T shirts making all kinds of statements against it.
Don’t worry, they’ll just “rebrand” it. Some states (Indiana, for one) already have.
Exactly. Same mess, new name.
Coming soon to a state near you!
Well, this is certainly evidence that when someone famous speaks out about Common Core, it doesn’t matter to anyone (not even people who ought to know better) that he’s too dumb to know that the Common Core has precisely zero to do with the fact that his kid’s teacher made a typo on the math homework.
The kid’s teacher is using EngageNY math modules. Designed for Pearson test prep. We’ll know tomorrow.
It is also evidence that you don’t know what you’re talking about WT.
As usual.
Dumba**. Louis “educator” CK was complaining about a typo. Where in the Common Core does it say to make typos?
And oh yeah, typos never existed prior to Common Core. That’s why Common Core is like the Nazis.
Can you give us the English subtitles with your comments. Thanks
What was the typo?
I believe WT is referring to this, where problems #4 and #5 have run together on the same line.
For some reason the Twitter link I posted threw my comment into moderation: go to Louis CK’s Twitter feed and look for the tweet containing the text “Look at 4 of part a. And the point isn’t that it’s too hard. Just read #4. Please.”
It appears that problem #5 in the set ran on the same line as #4, making problem #4 seem incoherent.
That’s the kind of thing I wouldn’t have noticed until at least an hour’s worth of raging (mainly me) and weeping (mainly my daughter).
It’s hard to find humor in the abuse caused by the punitive Common Core Environment, but if shame and humiliation works to expose the impostors who are causing this damage to children, then good……Expose it!
The greatest fear of child abusers is said to be “exposure”.
Totally off-topic, but is anyone else nauseated that slumlord Kevin “Sweet 16” Johnson is getting all kinds of praise and pats on the back for his role in the Donald Sterling fiasco? At least The Nation is trying to present some reasonable balance: http://www.thenation.com/blog/179580/sterling-ban-10-takeaways-adam-silvers-and-kevin-johnsons-press-conferences
I had the same feeling, Dienne. Also had it when Secretary Duncan was named MVP of the NBA Celebrity All-Star Game.
Laughing is better than crying on any given day.
inBloom failed. Common Core for-profit worksheet curriculum/homework will fail. High-stakes testing will fail.
Parents will end the common core worksheet nonsense when they draw NO symbols on the paperwork, add signatures and send it to Cuomo with copies to the NY State Assembly.
Civil disobedience is in order and Gates does not have enough money to repair the damage.
Absolutely. Don’t jut refuse the test. Refuse the test prep if its garbage.
If its EngageNY don’t look twice.
I look forward to the epilogue: “How Louis C.K. saved American education”.
We need to stay focused, not funny, deadly serious, can not be cheapened by mass media. It is not just Common Core.
“It’s never just a game, when you’re winning.”
-George Carlin
The NPRs and mass media are controlled big time by the corporations. Opting Out is more powerful than any media. We are on our own, beware of “minstrels”, with an independent political party.
Hi Diane, As those of us who have labored for progressive causes all our lives know, humor makes a healthier weapon (at least, for the author) than rage. When the humorist is well-placed, she can have devastating impact–I think of Reuben Ship’s “The Investigator,” a CBC radio play released as a 33 rpm record which had a significant role in McCarthy’s downfall.
I’ve begun propagating my alternative to the CCSS: the “Common Thread Doctrine,” whereby every lesson must have some tie-in to string games. I’m way less than half-joking, and it’s a much healthier line of thought than berating the perpetrators of our current ghastly deformation in the name of “reform.”
This is no joke, Mister. Get a grip !
I am working on a doctoral research project inspired by Diane’s book, Death and Life of the Great American School System (2011). If the public school system–as many of us knew it, at least–is dead or near death, it would stand to reason that public school teachers who remember the system as it was prior to No Child Left Behind (2002) have experienced loss and grief. If you remember what it was like to teach prior to No Child Left Behind, if you feel as if teaching completely changed when No Child Left Behind was implemented, or if you ever felt saddened by some of the changes that resulted from educational reform, then you may be interested in taking my survey.
Professional Loss and Grief in Teachers (a survey)
https://ndstate.co1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_5nCLnPAFadWZX93
Diane, any thought to having the Network for Public Education come up with grades for politicians running for office? I think I would love to see this for the upcoming Ohio Governor’s race?
It not from Washington: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/04/23/29cc-backlash.h33.html?plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:543993d6-d7e9-4e3b-bbac-b1a9c8e25853
It’s painful when people I think should be “in the fold” are not here yet. For example, Edushyster gets the connection between Walmart’s economics and Walton Family’s education strategy. Meanwhile, when progressive economist-types like Paul Krugman, Robert Reich, or Elizabeth Warren — who all regularly expose Walmart — weigh in on our education system, they make mistakes. Glaring, big, sad, simple mistakes.
I gladly welcome Louis C. K. “in the fold”.
+1
I imagine he’s one of the few celebrities whose children attend public school. Kudos to him.
He’s no Cynthia Nixon! But I agree with you.
One of our school psychologists sent me a link to an advertisement about services to help students cope with school-related stress. There is even a profit to be made on student anxiety! Here is an excerpt and the link:
“The Common Core has resulted in the highest level of stress in students, educators, and parents that I have witnessed in my school system since entering the field in 1978.”
Anthony Pantaleno, PhD, School Psychologist in NY
Students are faced with significant challenges in society today—challenges that not so long ago were the purview of an adult world. Add to this the rigorous standards of the Common Core, and students are presented with a whole new set of challenges. Read more in our blog.
Join us for a free webinar with Anthony Pantaleno, PhD, a school psychologist in NY, to learn about the effect of social and academic stresses on our students today. During his presentation, Dr. Pantaleno will discuss innovative ways for managing student stress—including the use of technologies such as Kurzweil 3000-firefly.
Student Stress, the Common Core, and Powerful Strategies for Change
April 30th at 4:30 PM ET
Register Now
Here is the link:
https://services.blimessaging.com/201208/viewaswebpage/viewaswebpage.aspx?unqid=70181ff4-b7cf-e311-b2b4-000c29ac9535
Ken Mitchell