If you plan to comment on the proposed federal regulations to judge teachers’ colleges and education programs by the test scores of the students of their graduates, you cannot do so by email. You may comment on the “Federal eRulemaking Portal” or send mail. You may not comment by fax or email (except by entering the Federal eRulemaking Portal). Got that?
Here is the necessary information, sent by a reader:
Please note that the instructions for submitting comments are only partially correct — comments cannot be submitted via email. Submit them online at https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/12/03/2014-28218/teacher-preparation-issues (there’s a green button in the right-hand column that says “SUBMIT A FORMAL COMMENT”).
As per the posting in the Federal Register, https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/12/03/2014-28218/teacher-preparation-issues#addresses:
Submit your comments through the Federal eRulemaking Portal or via postal mail, commercial delivery, or hand delivery. We will not accept comments by fax or by email. To ensure that we do not receive duplicate copies, please submit your comments only one time. In addition, please include the Docket ID at the top of your comments.
· Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to http://www.regulations.gov to submit your comments electronically. Information on using Regulations.gov, including instructions for accessing agency documents, submitting comments, and viewing the docket, is available on the site under “Are you new to the site?” Show citation box
· Postal Mail, Commercial Delivery, or Hand Delivery: If you mail or deliver your comments about these proposed regulations, address them to Sophia McArdle, U.S. Department of Education, 1990 K Street NW., Room 8017, Washington, DC 20006.
NYSUT plans to protest Governor Cuomo on January 1, 3:30 at the Buffalo History Museum.
Please share widely!
Meeting Time
3 pm McKinley High School, we will then walk over to the event.
Protest Start
3:30 at the Buffalo Museum of History.
Parking
You can park either Buffalo State, McKinley High School, or surrounding streets and walk over.
Signage
Please bring a sign to the event! We will making some signs, but the best signs come from you!
If you have any cardboard from the holidays, cut it up and flip it over. I will be at the McKinley lot with extra cardboard. Bring a yardstick to staple it to!
What to put on your sign? How about the Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA) cut to your school district. That is what we are fighting for!
Questions?
Contact: nystoptesting@gmail.com
Please note the date for the reply is Feb.2 not Jan. 2. Barbara Brothers
Will these new regulations pushed by Arne Duncan also apply to TFA teachers. Will TFA loose funding if their recruits’ students test scores don’t improve. Are there similar measures being applied to all professional schools such as medical schools, accounting, and law?
I marched in the first SOS march in Washington. I sent emails. I sent letters. And when my NYS reps were going to make a big decision on who to select as a Regent, I sent emails. Now when others say these actions fall on deaf ears, I’ve come to realize they may be right. This all sounds like a done deal. But I will try again because maybe they are not getting enough emails, letters, faxes, marches. There are thousands of teachers in the USA, we should act collectively.
I went through the process as described. Hopefully my comments were received. My comments were the same as I posted on another blog of Dr. Ravitch earlier today. My views entirely. Have seen no one else posting this particular idea.
School reform; democratic idealism or autocracy? Who decides the validity of “ truths” taught; scholarly research or political hacks? Politicians now make out tests, grade them and teachers, schools are evaluated on how well students assimilate, regurgitate on written tests that which government asserts as truths.
Previous to “A Nation at Risk” scholarly research was assumed to be the best we could know at any given time “truths” which were taught, how they were taught, and evaluated on those scholarly principles.
Our Supreme Court has defined as the basic underlying principle for public schools existence; “promoting government agenda“. Democratic idealism or fascism?
Who decides educational goals? Professional educators, child psychologists, scholarly research? Political, corporate controlled test scores now supplant, usurp historical humankind’s best minds stated educational goals.
These issues are not stated, evaluated in school reform “debate” but democracy survives or perishes on how these questions are answered.
The site only lists 71 comments, 70 negative. Rhetorically, do the university schools of education, even know about the Dept. of Ed.’s proposal?
Deadline for comment, Feb. 2, 2014?
Dear Arne Duncan –
My students are the center of my life.
Even if they never pass one standardized test – we will all do our best. I will make effective lessons. We will work. They will try their best. And they are most likely going to struggle academically. Not because of lack of rigor or lack of planning or lack of intelligence.
They will sing. They will dance. We will read and laugh and problem solve.
I will speak to their proud parents. I will tutor after school.
Authentic learning will take place. And my students will learn English. Not enough to score like students who only know English – but being bilingual is not measured. Academic English takes up to ten years to master but somehow we don’t have time to give our kids anymore.
And 50% of my evaluation will be student scores and I will be labeled a failure. Decades of teaching kids to read and my love for my community will not be measured – cannot be measured – and it doesn’t count. If my students do not do the same thing as the average student – our work will not be valued.
Policies that destroy good teachers, community schools and disenfranchising kids will be your legacy.
You can soothe your soul knowing you removed people like me with your number games and data collecting. Perhaps a charter with a slick administrator and investors will love my students more. Hard to picture a corporation or business caring for kids – but that is the plan for turning around “failures” like me right?
I tell myself to be a bigger person. I weep for my lost career and my struggling students and their families.
At-risk kids and their teachers are being drowned in your scores and standardization and privatization. I am not alone. I am not alone.
O god hear the words of my mouth. Let hearts be softened and ears made to listen to the weeping teachers and the children that they love.
We are more than a score.
It appears the “federal regulations” site for pubic comments, on the Teacher Prep Overhaul, stopped posting comments for viewing, on Dec. 16.