Mike Klonsky knows who is sucking the oxygen out of classrooms and killing the joy of learning: Arne Duncan.
Don’t take Mike’s word for it. Arne confessed. He said he would give schools a one-year reprieve from his testing mandates. One year to breathe deep and suck in some real oxygen. Then he returns to take your oxygen away again. Makes sense, no? No.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Super news.
I feel for my students. They are the lowest 1% and this year I need to teach them via higher level thinking skills even though they aren’t verbal. If one looks at the research, it is possible, but then look at the conditions under which it is supposed to be accomplished, it isn’t the reality in my school. Yes, there are a couple in the whole center school who can and do do better when the teaching focus changes. I only have a curriculum and no texts, manipulatives or communication boards and must hand make everything by for all my lessons. It takes me about 15 hours a week of work outside teaching just to prepare lessons. My students deserve the respect but if general education students and their teachers get support for the current expectations why don’t special education students get it too? Sure a year off from national testing would be nice but it doesn’t buy much. There are still IEP goals along with the Common Core-type curriculum that my students in high school would find the kindergarten level impossible even after a year of work. I understand that my students are tested on grade level and I should be evaluated on their growth (in actuality in my county I receive the average of the district, students) yet, if a child is not functioning on grade level teachers then look a the Common Core curriculum and work with them were they are. My school is graded on the actual students’ scores on a test that doesn’t really measure what they have been doing on their level. But who’s mentioning the elephant in the room? What’s wrong with this picture?
It was evident these reforms were toxic when addition to children crying in schools the adults were crying too. Now all we can do is reminisce about the days prior to NCLB and RTTT when teaching and learning were filled with cheerfulness and delight spilling over from recess into the classroom. Prior to the test/punishment regime the oxygen was not being sucked out of our classrooms and there was jubilant learning mixed with laughter everywhere. Now our playgrounds are filled with the sounds of silence as well as our classrooms— Children are afraid to take risks and answer for fear of giving the wrong answer. Children have learned that the correct response is what matters. We need to shift gears back to when the learning not the correct response was most important. It is okay to fail, some of our greatest discoveries have occurred through hundreds of trials and errors.
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand teachers, maybe more.
Students testing without learning,
Children complying without thinking,
Pearson writing tests, with answers never shared
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.
And reformers bowed and prayed
To the CC god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming.
And the sign said, The words of the prophets are written on the classroom walls
And school halls
And whispered in the sound of silence.
You-all should be proud, though. You did this, parents and teachers and blogs. They’ve sat back and watched the testing increase for the last 14 years. Lawmakers and policymakers did absolutely nothing to stop it. They’d still be adding tests if it weren’t for parents and teachers in Texas and NY and all those other places.
The anti-standardized testing push didn’t come from DC or a state capitol or the Gates, Walton or Broad Foundations. It came from people who work in public schools and parents who send their children to public schools.
I know Duncan’s scolding press release doesn’t seem like much of a concession, and it isn’t, but you cracked what was an impenetrable wall and you did it without media or paid lobbyists or any access to the 150 “thought leaders” who have access to the Obama Administration.
Good job 🙂
This is relevant to me: I’m an ELA teacher. 🙂 Thanks for posting. There’s many education issues today – including testing.
It’s the mission of Duncan to suck the living breath out of our public schools and promote the corporate agenda.
There has been a palpable increase in happiness at my school amongst both faculty and students since the suspension of high-stakes tests, API and AYP here in CA. Let’s preserve this state of sanity!
What’s happiness?
There has been a palpable increase in [temporary] happiness at my school amongst both faculty and students since the suspension of high-stakes tests, API and AYP here in CA. Let’s preserve this state of sanity!
As Yogi Berra said, it’s not over til its over.” Arne and his cohorts will not be
easily defeated and teachers who oppose c.core run the risk of being ostrasized.
Yet this small and not sincere concession by Duncan is a concession nonetheless,
all honor to Diane and the power of her blog.
Here in New Mexico, there is no reprieve. Our ALEC placed secretary of education DESIGNEE (unconfirmed as she does not legally qualify for the position) is marching us full pace off the cliff of PARCC.
I have already said that the architecture for test-em-til they drop is place at the state level and this one year reprieve is not a white flag of surrender.
The tests on deck for this year are unlikely to be cancelled. Many states have multiyear contracts for tests and scoring.
All of the state websites with the legislative mandates for this or that accountability mandate are not going to be revised or dismantled.
The Duncan pause is politically expedient, but too little and too late to be an “undo” of the policies he and Obama have embraced, most of these foisted on teachers, principals, and students by billionaires intent on capturing every tax dollar for public goods and services in order to make a profit.
Nothing can change until Congress re-writes/re-authorizes ESEA LAW! All the ranting, venting, posturing, lying, hoping, and praying will do nothing to save us, Congress must act.