This letter arrived in my email from a professor at the University of New Mexico who is deeply disturbed by the over-testing of her children. The president of the local PTA did not want her to speak, she said. Even more shocking was her statement that teachers had to sign a pledge promising not to say anything negative to parents about the PARCC test or to disparage testing in general. I don’t know why, but I was reminded of the loyalty oaths that many teachers were compelled to sign during the McCarthy era in the late 1940s and early 1950s, to “prove” that they were not Communists.
Albuquerque PTA Smackdown
This is a redacted version of the talk I attempted to deliver at my children’s Elementary School PTA meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico on Tuesday, November 18, 2014.
The former PTA president had suggested that I ask the current president to put Standardized Testing on the agenda for this meeting, so my understanding was that the PTA was inviting me to speak on this topic.
In the five days leading up to the meeting, I was intimidated by emails from the PTA president and a phone conversation intended to censor the content of what I was going to present.
I knew that teachers’ freedom of speech on the topic of Standardized Testing had been curtailed, but until last week I hadn’t heard of parents being censored on this topic.
The president told me that the PTA officers had met in advance of the meeting, and that if they were going to allow me to speak (her words), they had the right to control the parameters of what I might say.
When I arrived on Tuesday night, the doors to the building were locked. When my husband, who had been misdirected to another building, managed to get in, he was told not to bother plugging in the projector for my powerpoint presentation, because they were not going to let me finish presenting.
While speaking, I was repeatedly interrupted by the PTA president’s attempts to cut me off. When PTA members called out “let her speak,” a vote was called and a majority voted to let me continue. Still, feeling harassed in the hostile environment the PTA president had created, I was only able to read about half of the following:
I would like to begin by thanking the PTA officers and the former PTA president for suggesting that I put Standardized Testing on the agenda for this meeting. The current PTA President has asked me to supply you with the means to get more information on this topic, so flyers with links to websites will be handed out.
I am Dr. Kimberle López and as Spanish professors at the University of New Mexico here in Albuquerque, my husband and I have had the honor and privilege of having many of this elementary school’s teachers and parents as our students. I am here not representing the PTA but as a parent and private citizen presenting the results of research I have conducted over the past year since attending a meeting at our neighboring elementary school.
I present this information so that you can draw your own informed conclusions. First I would like to present a little background on Standardized Testing.
The thing is, test scores can be used to argue opposite points, depending on how you interpret cause and effect. If you want to assert that people with lower incomes or different ethnicities are naturally less intelligent, then lower test scores can back you up. But if you say that testing favors those who have economic advantages, you will interpret the correlation between test scores and income level very differently, taking into account that not all students are given equal educational opportunities.
The increase in testing over the past decade and a half arose in part as a response to a supposed dramatic rise in test scores in Houston and other parts of Texas, which were soon proven to be the result of lies, cheating, and manipulation of data.
When I first learned about No Child Left Behind, what struck me most was that it seemed that when schools did poorly on standardized tests, the plan was to take money away from those schools. That always seemed backwards to me, since aren’t those the schools that need more resources and support?
There is a new test for this Spring that is causing a lot of consternation because of a format unlike that of any other large scale high stakes test given before.
Standardized Tests are designed from a model of what do kids need to know to go from high school to college into a career, and then that is trickled down into middle school and elementary school exams. The exams are designed and graded by individuals who do not necessarily have any training in child development nor classroom experience with children. The high school model is not developmentally appropriate for young children.
The letters ARCC in the acronym PARCC stand for Assessment for Readiness for College and Careers, and this is the test that our 3rd through 5th graders will be taking in Spring.
The PARCC test is problematic on a technological level since from one question to another students have to switch between typing in answers, clicking on multiple choices, filling in blanks, navigating texts between split screens, dragging and dropping, highlighting, using a drop-down menu, etc.
This involves class issues and institutional racism, since children from affluent families who have their own iPads would be more familiar with dragging and dropping and using drop-down menus than children who live below the poverty line.
We all have concerns about “teaching for the test,” but up until this year, those concerns had to do with teachers having to take class time away from more appropriate forms of learning to teach the content of what would be on the tests. But this year with the PARCC a whole new level of concern has arisen—that we need to take time away from classroom instruction to prepare students for the technological format of the test.
Some schools in New Mexico have computer labs and computer lab teachers, but not all children across the state have equal access to computers. Many schools across our state don’t even have the computer facilities to administer the PARCC test, much less to prepare student for its technological challenges.
In addition to time spent preparing for the test, the administration of the PARCC test will take approximately 10 hours. Ten hours—that is more than twice as long as the MCAT college seniors take to get into Medical School or the LCAT they take to get into Law School.
I have heard that the PARCC will take time away from instruction and interrupt the school routine for six weeks in Spring. Even though the kids won’t be taking the test all day, I think we all know that if students are taking tests in the morning, they may not be as receptive to learning in the afternoon.
I would like to see our school keep our current high rating, but not because we have an unfair advantage over other kids across the state. Our neighboring school has an “F” rating that is affecting student enrollment, the ability to hire teachers, and property values in their district.
Why? Not because it is a bad school with bad teachers, but on the contrary, because they have a magnet Special Education program, and my understanding is that Special Education students must take the standardized tests corresponding to their grade level without reasonable accommodations.
Because test scores are tied to Teacher Evaluations and School Rankings, Special Ed teachers are more likely to be rated as “minimally effective,” get lower raises, and the schools that serve the most underserved children are ranked lower and risk having their funding reduced. So again, the kids who need the most help get fewer resources, and the teachers who work the hardest and have the most stressful job are the least rewarded.
New Mexico teachers have 50% of their Teacher Evaluation based on student test scores—no other state in the union has a higher percentage, and most count Standardized Testing as a significantly lower percentage of Teacher Evaluations. States risk losing federal funding if they don’t tie Teacher Evaluations to student test scores.
The rating of schools using A-F grades is particularly demoralizing to teachers, because teachers took pride in being “A” students when they were in school.
Schools having an F rating for a certain number of years risk closure. What is happening across the country is that Standardized Test scores are being used as a pretext to close public schools and then re-open them as corporate-run for-profit schools funded with tax dollars.
The process of privatization seems to follow this sequence: first, there appear headlines saying “Our Schools Are Failing.” If they repeat it often enough, we begin to believe it. Then they use Standardized Testing to give failing grades to school, then after a few years they close them and replace them with Corporate Charter Schools. Last year in Chicago alone, 50 public schools were closed, and in Chicago the for-profit corporate charter school industry is booming.
When I say corporate charter schools, I am not talking about the grassroots charter schools run by dedicated educators who have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and rolled up their sleeves ready to work to contribute to educate our kids and make our communities a better place. No–I am talking about multi-billion dollar corporations that run for-profit schools using our tax dollars.
They use the top-down corporate model that pays administrators top dollar while treating teachers like lowly assembly line workers, underpaid and overworked. The administrators making educational decisions are businesspeople not educators.
New Mexico, like other states, is moving toward the privatization of education. The privatization of public education means that, like the private prisons, our tax dollars would be used to pay for-profit companies to run our schools.
If you haven’t heard about these issues, it may be due to the fact that teachers are discouraged from discussing testing with parents. It surprised me to learn this, since one would think that it would be a professional obligation of teachers to critically examine the tests and discuss them with parents. Instead, it is a taboo subject and teachers are led to believe that they might lose their jobs if they talk to parents about something so relevant to their students’ educational wellbeing. We want teachers to teach our kids critical thinking, but they are discouraged from applying critical thinking to examining the circumstances in which they practice their own profession.
[The day after this PTA meeting, I attended a School Board meeting where I learned that New Mexico teachers who would be administering the PARCC had all been obliged to sign a waiver saying that they would not speak disparagingly about the PARCC.]
It is because teachers have been intimidated and made to feel fearful about discussing the topic of Standardized Testing that I feel compelled as a parent to speak. Teachers are threatened with losing their jobs, but parents still have the right and the obligation to monitor their children’s education.
[I didn’t think that parents were also censored on this topic, but by this time the PTA president had interrupted me several times and was trying to cut me off. A vote was called and a majority voted to let me continue. The PTA president set a timer for two minutes so I didn’t get much further]
The topic of Standardized Testing makes teachers very nervous. Students pick up on this, and it makes them nervous as well. Anxiety is running high–although it is only November, kids are already coming home and telling their parents about a big test they will be taking next Spring.
What causes a lot of teacher stress is the top-down corporate model of education. The idea is that a school or a school system is basically like a business and should be run like one, with the administrators at the top being paid top dollar and the teachers being not just the lowest paid and least appreciated, but also those whose opinions are least taken into account when educational decisions are made.
Instead, decisions that affect our children most are taken by business managers without taking into account input from those who know the most about what is best for our kids, their classroom teachers. I would venture to guess that what is most demoralizing to teachers is not the low wages or the ever increasing workload (teachers are used to being overworked and underpaid) but the fact that the administration fails to draw on teachers’ extensive experience when making decisions that affect our kids.
The main reason this corporate model is flawed is that a school is not like a business. A business runs to produce a product and make a profit. Our school system has tried to copy this model with the student as the “product” and the teachers as the assembly line producers. Standardized Testing has grown as its own multi-billion dollar industry in response to the need to measure educational “production.”
Standardized Tests have never been proven with independent research (not funded by the publishing companies that produce and sell the tests) to be an accurate measure of students’ knowledge. The only thing Standardized Testing has definitively been proven to have achieved is to have enriched the coffers of the publishing houses that design and produce the tests.
New Mexico has dedicated $9.8 million to the online PARCC tests for this Spring, and it has cost our public school system $1.3 million to add a testing coordinator at each of our schools this year. The state reforms are forcing our most experienced teachers out of the classroom while we are adding testing coordinators and computer experts to prepare students for these exams.
Ten million dollars could be better spent on something directly contributing to education: 10 million dollars could fund thousands of teacher salaries, buy thousands of computers and hundreds of thousands of books for our schools.
Although it is common knowledge that teachers are underpaid and overworked, they are often treated as if they were overpaid and underworked, and each year they are loaded up with new bureaucratic tasks that don’t translate into more meaningful classroom experiences for their students.
If you lined up 10 teachers and asked them whether they would prefer to have a higher salary; less work; or the right to have a say in decisions that affect education, and the knowledge that the work they were doing was not bureaucratic busy work but meaningful work that contributes to education, I believe that at least 9 of them would accept their current salary and workload if they knew that they were respected for their experience and their opinions were taken into account in educational decisions.
At the meeting over a year ago at our neighboring school, a highly esteemed teacher who works tirelessly for students at our school, said that our “B” rating is due in part to the fact that our faculty have figured out how to say what bureaucracy wants to hear when they fill out the forms set up for ranking schools. Someone in the audience replied that it is unfortunate that we have put our teachers in the position where they have to jump through hoops. Indeed, jumping through hoops is something we train circus animals, not professional educators, to do. It is appalling that teachers need to spend so much time on meaningless bureaucratic tasks, taking time away from doing the meaningful work they were educated and hired to do.
Most of us just let this happen because we figure there is nothing we can do about it. The public school system doesn’t make parents aware of the fact that they can opt their children out from testing. And if we do happen to find the opt-out form on line, we read language that aims to “guilt” parents into not signing the form. Our form says that opting out may “hamper instructional planning for my child” but if the tests are taken in Spring and results are not received until the next school year, it is simply not true that these tests help instructional planning for my child, who will be in a different class with a different teacher by the time my kid’s current teacher receives the test scores.
Many parents feel torn about “opting out” of standardized testing—even if parents think that opting out is best for our children, they are told that it will hurt our schools. The only reason it would hurt our schools is because the system is arbitrarily set up to base teacher raises and school rankings on standardized test scores. Why should parents be forced to choose between what is best for our schools and what is best for our kids? Shouldn’t what is best for our kids and our schools be the same thing?
Have you seen or shared John Eppolito’s presentation against Common Core?
Fantastic. Covers the problems with testing in a way that everyone can understand. I am planning to share this with my fellow public school parents here in MA. I am finding that no one wants to speak up or stir the pot here in my town either but I am doing it! This speech will help get my points across, thank you!
Great presentation, but the parent misses a step in the steps to privatization:
————————————————————-
PARENT:
“The process of privatization seems to follow this sequence:
“First, there appear headlines saying ‘Our Schools Are Failing.’ If they repeat it often enough, we begin to believe it.
“Then they use Standardized Testing to give failing grades to school,
“Then after a few years they close them and replace them with Corporate Charter Schools.
“Last year in Chicago alone, 50 public schools were closed, and in Chicago the for-profit corporate charter school industry is booming.”
————————————–
Here’s the step that the parent missed:
“deliberate and systematic defunding of traditional schools.”
Before (also during and after) the first step described above even happens, the forces of privatization have been deliberately rigging the game against the traditional public schools succeeding and in favor of the charters outdoing them (even with these and other advantages, the charters are NOT outdoing them, but that’s another story.)
They accomplish that rigging by systematically starving the traditional public schools—the ones with a unionized force of teachers staffing them, naturally—of funding, so as to cause failure that results from this underfunding:
— jacking up of class sizes sky-high,
— cutting salaries so quality teachers leave for better paying jobs outside of education,
— no supplies for students teachers,
… and on on and.
Privatizers then use that “failure”—the one that THEY actually and knowingly caused—to close public schools. Without mentioning that they are the actual cause via their deliberate underfunding, privatizers then instead attribute the failure to the general idea that well… public schools controlled by elected school boards are just inherently doomed to failure because of evil unions and other innate deficiencies—no stable governance—that goes along with a system of publicly controlled schools via democratically-elected school boards..
Witness this video:
… where Netflix CEO and arch privatizer Reed Hastings is giving a keynote address to the California Charter School Association. Reed says that the biggest current problem in education is that the public simply loves democracy and democratically-elected school boards so much, as they’ve been “an iconic American institution they’ve known for 200 years.”
(During which the U.S. has become the most dominant economic giant in the history of the human race, and created the economic opportunity and system that allowed Reed to become a billionaire, but Reed, of course, does not go there.)
Reed says that the challenge for privatizers like the California Charter School Association and others is to propagandize the public into hating democracy and school boards—Reed calls this process “evolv(ing) America”—so that Reed and his allies can wipe those democratic bodies off the face of the earth.
——————————–
REED HASTINGS:
“If we go to the general public and we say, ‘Here’s an argument why we should get rid of school boards, no one’s going to go for it, because school boards have been an iconic part of America for 200 years.”
———————————-
Reed says that democratically-elected school board members are the problem with education, and they must “be replaced by privately-held corporations in the next 20-30 years.”
He talks about how inefficient democracy is… how the bosses aren’t free to do any “long-term planning” (what is he, Stalin, with multiple “Five-Year Plans”?) because school boards are actually accountable to private citizens in such actions. This is so unlike those private boards that Reed so loves, unaccountable bodies that are free to do whatever they want whenever they want whether the public actually wants it or not.
Again, they use the alleged traditional public schools’ “failure”—again, for which they, the privatizers, are truly culpable—as the pretext for then closing traditional public schools, and replacing them with privatized charters. Reed even brags about how New Orleans is 90% privatized with charters… and how California, at a mere 8%, has “a lot of catch up to do.”
If anyone ever tries to sell you the lie that “charters don’t want to replace public schools. They merely want to provide parents more choice of schools and options. They want to work side-by-side with traditional public schools, sharing best practices… There will be a family of schools—public, charter, private—walking hand-in-hand through the meadow of education… blah-blah-blah… ”
When you hear them blather this, and about how noble the charter movement is, play them this video. The privatizers, as Reed blathers here, WANT TO CONTROL ALL SCHOOLS AND ELIMINATE PUBLIC EDUCATION, AND DON’T YOU FORGET IT!!! He’s giving the keynote address to the Charter School association… listen to them cheer Reed on when he blatantly calls for this. They can’t deny it. It’s on freakin’ video.
Also, look at how they loudly this charterizer-privatizer crowd cheers when Reed references the show “HOUSE OF CARDS”, a drama about sociopathic D.C. political hucksters and insiders. Indeed, the catchphrase of Kevin Spacey’s slimy leader character:
“Democracy is so over-rated.”
Disgusting.
The problem the privatizers run into is in school districts with a strongly progressive (liberal… there, I said it 😉 ) tradition, such as the case with Los Angeles’ LAUSD. Unlike other major cities where the mayor used political maneuvering and power to replace school boards with a rubber stamp kangaroo school board appointed by the a pro-privatization mayor (New York, Chicago, etc.), Los Angeles remains a city where schools are controlled by the citizen-taxpayers / voters.
In 2006, school privatizer Mayor Villaraigosa successfully got the state legislature to pass a law to give him and the Mayor’s office control of the schools similar that of mayors in New York and Chicago—a rubber stamp board appointed by him—but this was challenged and thankfully thrown out by a judge.
That’s when the privatizers then go to Plan B (as Villaraigosa did):
work within and use the democratic school board system that they so despise and so want to eliminate… with the ultimate goal being to gradually destroy and eliminate that same system down the road.
The cynicism is breathtaking. Here’s how read describes it,
—————–
REED HASTINGS:
“Now, if we go to the general public and say, ‘Here’s an argument why we should get rid of school boards,’ no one’s going to go for it. School boards have been an iconic part of America for 200 years.”
—————-
So what’s a corrupt privatization movement to do in the face of this?
Why… just approach that same public that dead-set is against privatization… tell them a bunch of lies and trick them into voting in a bunch of politicians that will then do exactly what the public doesn’t want…. privatize education and eliminate public schools.
In the video, Reed euphemistically calls this tactic “work(ing) within the district to grow (privatize via charters) steadily.”
So how do they do that?
Reed and his allies (Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Walton family, et al) run corporate/privatizer puppet candidates—trojan horses, if you will. As with trojan horses, these candidates present themselves to the public by proclaiming benign intentions and backgrounds—failed candidate Kate Anderson comes to mind… she was the plucky mom who just cares about kids and their schools… and who also got $3 million from the privatizers to run her campaign.
However once they are in power, these trojan horses then defund and sabotage the pre-existing public schools, and ramp up privatization—replacing those schools with privatized charters. The most recent and most prominent of these “trojan horses” is Marshall Tuck, the failed candidate for California State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Tuck—and his campaign in general—is a virtual prototype of the privatization trojan horse politician. (He got over $30 millilon dollars just from out-of-state billionaires pushing for privatization.)
Here are some of the things that trojan horse privatizers do once elected:
—approve whatever cockamamie “Ted Morris”-like charter proposal that is presented—every charter opened drains children and funding away from public schools, and removes a brick from the wall of public education… eventually the whole wall collapses;
— close “failing” traditional public schools and replace with charters;
— gut funding for the traditional public schools, raising the class-size sky-high… and triggering “failure”; since fewer classrooms are needed, this also facilitates charter expansion, in the form of invasions of the campus, otherwise known as “co-locations” (SEE BELOW);
— gut the pay of teachers, lowering the quality of education… great teachers will quit, become disgruntled—causing dissension within the teachers union, and influencing other potentially great teachers considering teaching as a career—who would otherwise end up at a traditional public school—not to do so;
— in general, bring about the de-professionalization of teaching, devaluing it from a highly-skilled, highly-educated, respected, decades-long career and profession—such as doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc.—and dragging it down to a low-level, short-term service job such as office temping, fast food, or retail, with low-pay—2 years or 5 max and you’re out… rinse and repeat; indeed, how can the privatizing profiteers make a profit if they have to pay professional wages?
— eliminate or gut tenure… all the while claiming it’s all for the kids, so that they’ll be great teacher in ever classroom… when that’s clearly not their goal… de-professionalization and privatization is;
— appoint a “Broad Academy-trained” Superintendent who terrorizes the teaching force, and targets teacher union activists and older, veteran teachers… replacing them with mostly anti-union Teach for America… who have a scant five weeks training, and will be gone after two years, three tops;
— force co-location of charters on public school campus, facilitating the expansion of charters, and chaos, leading to the destruction of public schools.
All of the above (and so much more) is EXACTLY what happened in LAUSD when the board dominated by corporate privatization puppets Yolie Flores, Monica Garcia, and Tamar Galatzan took over in 2009.
Thankfully, this disaster has been stopped and rolled back, thanks to a informed voting public that has woken up to the privatization crisis at hand. In the last four elections, the good guys all won (despite being outspent anywhere from 5-to-1 to 100-to-1).
— career educator Bennett Kayser defeated privatization shill / non-educator Luis Sanchez (taking over privatizer Yolie Flores’ seat on the Board);
— career educator Steve Zimmer defeated privatization shill / non-educator Kate Anderson (keeping his seat);
— career educator Monica Ratliff defeated privatization shill / non-educator Antonio Sanchez;(taking over privatizer Nury Martinez’ seat)
— career educator George McKenna defeated privatization shill / non-educator Alex Johnson; (taking over the seat of the late Marguerite LaMotte, a true public school champion)
(privatization puppet Monica Garcia came to within 4 percentage points of facing a run-off with education activist Robert D. Skeels… while spending $3 million dollars to Robert’s $ 30,000…. but we’ll get her next time l-) )
In the case of the Yolie Flores and Monica Garcia, the level of cynicism of the privatizers was quite stunning. They ran candidates proclaiming themselves to be poor Chicanas from the barrio, who would fight for the rights of other poor Chicanas from the barrio… blah-blah-blah… and then once they got in, the acted like total corporate reform-bots and execute everything and anything their corporate masters want them to do… even reading speeches that were emailed or faxed into them from their masters in the middle of LAUSD Board meetings
Yolie was so despised by her community once they caught on to what she was all about, that—and after Yolie saw in the polls that she’d lose badly if she tried to run again—she didn’t even try to run for re-election. Instead, privatizer Bill Gates created an educational foundation just for the purpose of giving Yolie a six-figure position… an after-the-fact bribe for services rendered.
That’s all for now.
A salient insight from the post–
“…concerns about “teaching for the test”… up until this year had to do with teachers having to take class time away from more appropriate forms of learning to teach the content of what would be on the tests… this year with the PARCC a whole new level of concern has arisen—we need to take time away from classroom instruction to prepare students for the technological format of the test.”
–which brought to mind the other layer of nonsense lying between teaching and testing content: preparing students to think about content in the manner prescribed by the CCSS-type standards assessed by PARCC.
A salient insight from Dr Ravitch’s intro: “…Even more shocking was her statement that teachers had to sign a pledge promising not to say anything negative to parents about the PARCC test or to disparage testing in general… I was reminded of the loyalty oaths that many teachers were compelled to sign during the McCarthy era in the late 1940s and early 1950s, to “prove” that they were not Communists.”
— The propagandizing and political-ideologizing of public education ‘reforms’, and particularly the manner in which they are implemented on the ground, through fear and intimidation, harks directly back to the blacklisting and other scurrilous doings of that shameful era in our recent history.
Wow! What a beautiful post! This parent says it all so perfectly! It is going to take parents, like these, to begin to initiate change. Sadly, many teachers are worried about their electric bill due next Tuesday. Many teachers are strapped with low pay and are scared to lose their jobs. They cannot be ridiculed for this. Teachers have children, mortgages, and bills too.
It is all so sad…The PARCC test will not measure how well our students have mastered their Reading or Math. It is a computer test, and it will measure how well the student does with technology. My students have already told me that they get tired reading long excerpts on a computer screen. Of course they do! If you were able to pick a computer screen or a hard copy of a long reading selection, I think most people would pick the hard copy. As a reader, you can underline, highlight, write questions down,..etc.You can easily use the reading strategies (on a hard copy) that you have been taught.
.It is all a huge mess. Corporate America has presently won out here. Millions of dollars have been made….and, as Jeb Bush has been quoted as saying…He can’t wait for these new tests to show how far behind the public schools are….How sad….Anyone who mistreats a child like this will have to answer for it someday..I hope they all like HOT PLACES..they are all headed there. Thank you so much for this wonderful post!
May I note that children of poverty generally have less access to technology than their peers from more financially advantaged backgrounds?
As a parent, I first knew something was radically wrong here when our children hit the testing grades and we tried to talk with their teachers about the state tests. In three different public schools we could barely get anyone to tell us what they really thought of the things. Under Michael Bloomberg in New York City, there was a powerful de facto gag order on teachers, and in at least one of the schools they were operating under the direct threat of being shut down and replaced with a charter school if the parents there did anything so radical as start opting out. Diane and many of the writers I’ve encountered in this blog have used some pretty strong language describing what is going on, and each time I start thinking, no, it can’t be this bad, we can’t be losing our democracy, I encounter yet another writer demonstrating things are even worse than I thought.
Yes, this is a replay of the McCarthy era, and worse. We are acting out one of the many scenarios the founders warned us about. A cursory glance at history shows that human societies tend to devolve into authoritarian forms of government. There is a constant tension between our desire for freedom and our desire for safe conformity. If more parents don’t wake up and join with educators to demand a restoration of democracy in our education system, before long there won’t be an education system to defend.
This is not the teachers’ fault, They are among the victims of this horrendous situation. When will parents understand en masse that if they don’t assert their constitutional right to determine who is in charge of their children’s education, that right will vanish?
A teacher I know at an elementary school targeted by Parent Revolution related how the teachers were gathered together one day and ordered by a LAUSD educrat to not talk about, or answer any questions, that might come their way regarding the hostile turnover. If they did: grounds for disciplinary action.
PR had rented a house in the immediate area, brought in staff including full-timers, and was active for months trying to get the parents to organize for them, sign their petitions, etc.
It failed, but most crucially because the teachers had close relationships with many of the parents [and some of the teachers had their own children at the school!] and a successful defense of the school was carried out by the parents.
LAUSD under John Deasy? Read the above. The UTLA? No help.
But this posting and the above should remind viewers of this blog that when the self-styled “education reform” movement puts teachers in the crosshairs, they are also targeting students and parents and anyone else defending public schools and a “better education for all.”
“We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” [Benjamin Franklin]
😎
Very Well Said!
“Even more shocking was her statement that teachers had to sign a pledge promising not to say anything negative to parents about the PARCC test or to disparage testing in general.”
Once again, just like with teachers losing their licenses for speaking out, this can’t possibly be legal/Constitutional. Someone (or a whole lot of someones) in a position to lose their job (close to retirement, has a spouse who can support them, etc.) needs to challenge this. Refuse to sign the damn thing and let the chips fall where they may. Take it to the highest court if need be, including the court of public opinion.
Sadly, it likely is constitutional, at least under the vastly narrowed view of 1st Amendment rights brought on by the current Supreme Court. Over the past decade, teachers and other employees in other fields have lost much of their right to speak without fear of losing their jobs. That is part of the problem.
The NEA lawyer in my state, Utah, told me that it IS legal to take a teacher’s license if he or she tells parents that they can opt out of the testing. The NEA representative also told me to not have my children tell their friends about opting out, lest it come back on me.
Generally, PTAs are like the two teacher unions, AFT and NEA–agents for the status quo, representing and defending the authorities, enforcing docility not opposition, not defending teachers, parents, or kids. This is why parents opting-opt can turn the tide here by removing their kids from the PARCC exams. Do folks know about the United Opt Out conference in Ft. Lauderdale MLK weekend?
I entered teaching in the 1950’s, an era when student teachers and teachers were required to sign a loyalty oath to the USA plus have fingerprints for FBI tracing of our activities (not for criminal background checks, as is common today).
As a student teacher, and again as a teacher, I was given a McCarthy era list of subversive or suspected-as-subversive organizations–on legal size paper, two columns each page, three pages.
Before you could do student teaching or be hired you had to swear that you had never been a member or officer in any of those organizations. I signed and prayed I had not been. I had not even heard of them.
The plot thickened because I was a teacher of art and the anti-communist crusade via the John Birch Society and other propagandists had persuaded too many people that modernist art was Communist-inspired.
Anyone could be labelled a Communist “sympathizer” and be subjected to what the press would later call a “witch hunt.” The silencing of this informed parent, teacher, and member of the PTA , and of teachers is totally inconsistent with the principle of free speech, and it is a sure sight that some whistleblowing is needed. I hope this parent and teacher will no be intimidated and continue to blow the whistle. I applaud the courage.
The efforts to silence this parent and teachers prove one thing: that speech is powerful. In The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt says speech IS action. I didn’t understand this at first; now I do. I saw this yesterday demonstrating at Walmart: the managers were beside themselves with anger at our presence, while many of the workers and shoppers were moved.
Funny how totalitarianism takes on the same forms wherever and whenever it arises.
And I don’t mean funny in a good way …
Crew Resource Management. If you see something say something. Iceberg? What iceberg? I can see where teachers should be somewhat guarded with sharing all of their professional opinions with parents. But, the school board meetings or teacher meetings should be a free forum.
So much for democratic freedoms of speech. On four occasions in attempting to educate our local school board about educational matters, never asking for anything for myself or my family my presentation was curtailed. They have a 3 minute maximum for addressing the board. Usually they are in session for about 45 minutes so it does seem that they are overworked.
One wonders what ever happened to free speech, for the utilization of democratic principles.
Obviously THEY know all they need to know about education although none have ever taught in a public school, let alone in our school system where I was both teacher and administrator for over 30 years.
Being elected to office makes them obviously experts in education. That script seems to be ubiquitous anymore.
Bravo to you for continuing your presentation despite your opposition!
The national PTA has been bought by Gates. Those of us who grew up in that archaic system called democracy are facing a rocky road as we move to plutocracy.
Disappointing response from the PTA. All the parents should be allowed to share their insights.
Do you think teachers should be able to as well, Joe Nathan? I’m honestly very curious about your position on this.
Yes I do think teachers should be allowed to share their opinions without retribution. I also think teachers should have the power to create new district public schools, as teachers have done in Boston (Boston Pilot Schools) and in New York (New Vision Schools) and as I think some have done in LA (Pilot Schools). These are all district options created by groups of teachers, sometimes working with community organizations.
There’s a growing “teacher led” school movement that some of us are strongly supporting.
http://www.educationevolving.org/newsletters/teacher-led-schools-idea-hits-national-media
I had to sign a loyalty oath in 1983!
Reblogged this on whatisarealeducation and commented:
I think it’s critical that parents become informed and empowered about this issue. I’m sure the majority of parents appreciated what was said and many likely left with a raised awareness. School boards could be holding parent meetings to share the pros and cons of standardized testing. PTA’s certainly should be. And if they don’t, we should act alone like the woman in New Mexico. Enduring a little social awkwardness is well worth the ultimate result- if we do the work, positive change will win out.
Just this week, a colleague shared her utter frustration at being told by an administrator, “You are paid to teach not have an opinion.” While this is the first I have heard it expressed so succinctly, this is no surprise coming from the regime under which we have been working in recent years.
This is the best informational threat of the year.
Here is the summary of all useful and helpful information and links in this thread from all educators and parents:
1) From: KrazyTA
November 29, 2014 at 3:02 pm
(in Mercedes Schneider: Is There Anyone in the U. S. Department of Education Who Believes in Public Education?)
“With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.”
William Lloyd Garrison was right then. He’s right now.
2) From: Laura H. Chapman
November 29, 2014 at 12:28 pm
Policies on data mining? “The future, like everything else, is no longer quite what it used to be.” Paul Valéry, poet.
It is no surprise that the Gates funded Teacher-Student Data Link Project started in 2005 is going full steam ahead. By 2011 his project said the link between teacher and student data would serve eight purposes:(which are completely fraudulent and opposite to a century of educational research, this is my emphasize)
1. Determine which teachers help students become college-ready and successful, (=train students to be robots for factory)
2. Determine characteristics of effective educators, (=serfs)
3. Identify programs that prepare highly qualified and effective teachers,(=submission)
4. Assess the value of non-traditional teacher preparation programs,(=TFA in 5 weeks, or Phd in 6 months)
5. Evaluate professional development programs,(destroy teaching dignity = silent serf)
6. Determine variables that help or hinder student learning,(rank and yank)
7. Plan effective assistance for teachers early in their career, and (=effective control)
8. Inform policy makers of best value practices, including compensation.(null licence + invalidate Due Process + overpower union by corruption)
3) From: readingexchange
November 29, 2014 at 11:32 am
“Educational experts were no longer found in the classroom. Now they are in corporate offices. They are in government offices.”
“Meanwhile, testing programs, which would also double as curriculum outlines…”
These are the two specific points that have driven the “transformation of education”.
Public school education is NO LONGER driven by experienced classroom teacher expertise BUT BY corporate and powerful government interests.
I do battle with this strong and well-funded attempt to control classroom instruction everyday. I refuse to relinquish my sacred responsibility as a teacher to powers far more rich and powerful than I, even though I know the odds are against me. I will hang on my by fingernails as long as I am able and teach in a manner which honors my students and their inherent rights as individuals in a free society.
4) From: Robert Caveney
November 29, 2014 at 11:45 am
There is a 3rd way from the Latin origination of education, educere, meaning to LEAD OUT the student FROM WITHIN.
IF we could, and we can (we have evidence), by leading students through INNER EXERCISES in an “inner gymnasium”, little by little (it takes about a month), students begin to BETTER HEAR THE WISE PART WITHIN, develop THE SKILL OF THE WILL, and a deep satisfaction takes hold;
THEN it becomes safe to provide the very autonomy students need to work on challenges JUST RIGHT FOR EACH STUDENT.
This is real education work – leading out the student from within – done by trained educators. Only students can do the knowledge work, the reading, writing and arithmetic.
Leading out students from within solves a structural problem of ‘the-one’ and ‘the-many’ that is unique to education work.
5) From:Dawn
November 30, 2014 at 3:55 pm
The Underground History of American Education is the book to read if you are looking for a real historical perspective based on facts. JOHN TAYLOR GATTO read over 2,500 books, conducted 100’s of interviews and worked on it 12 hours/day, 7 days/week, for 10 years. It is an 8″x12,” 400-page text.
John Taylor Gatto received the New York State Teacher of the Year award in 1990 and was named New York City Teacher of the Year in 1991.
Here is his acceptance speech:
“The only reason I received this award ” the only reason I’ve been a GREAT teacher for my students ” is because:
I didn’t do a single thing you told me to.
I ignored your ‘standards,
I thwarted your bureaucracy and I taught unauthorized material.
I filled out those forms that said the students were in their desks, when they were really taking horizon-expanding study trips.
I had them read real books instead of those inane, dumped-down textbooks of yours,
I taught them real history instead of the porridge of revisionist pabulum you call ‘social studies’.
“Your bureaucracy is a mill that grinds up human beings and turns them into consumer fertilizer for a planned economy.
Human potential erodes as hungry minds sit in listless boredom, and teachers operate without the tools they need, just so you guys can fill your administration buildings with cushy jobs and give contracts to your cherished vendors.
“That’s why most of our students can’t read after 12 years of education ” yes, even though it only takes 3 months to learn how to read. That’s why most kids follow the herd into a bleak future instead of thinking for themselves.
“I am OFFICIALLY turning in my RESIGNATION as of today.”- JTG, 1991
There are many more wonderful posts. However, in order to make my point across, the above 5 posts are evidently shown the True Teaching POWER.
And this below link is very excellent to all parents and gullible TFAs plus all young and inexperienced teachers to watch:
From: Akademos
November 29, 2014 at 9:08 am
Have you seen or shared John Eppolito’s presentation against Common Core?
I hope that people in general will appreciate the impartial judgment from Dr. Ravitch who allows everyone regardless of their backgrounds and personal opinion to freely contribute their inputs and evidences regarding the chaos/ destruction of America Public Education from business tycoons with agenda that loots public education fund away from tax payers.
I greatly appreciate Dr. Ravitch and many “Gurus” in teaching career with age of 65+ who have thirty years+ hand on experience in K-12 classrooms.
Very respectfully yours,
May King from Canada
This gives me an impression that the word “PTA” is beginning change its meaning to “Penalizing Teachers Association”? Hope it’s only in Albuquerque.
We have to sign something similar in North Carolina. It is considered part of our ethical code of conduct.