Archives for the month of: April, 2015
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Is It Illegal to Write or Read This Article about Testing?

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2015 //
41

Blogger-teacher Steven M. Singer here reveals the veil of secrecy that testing corporations drape around their product.

He writes:

Warning!

What you are about to read may be a criminal act.

I may have broken the law by putting this information out there.

Edward Snowden leaked data about civilian surveillance. Chelsea Manning released top secret military documents.

And me? I’m leaking legal threats and intimidation students and teachers are subject to during standardized testing.

Not exactly a federal crime is it?

No. I’m asking. Is it?

Because teachers are being fired and jailed. Students are being threatened with litigation.

All because they talked about standardized tests.

The US government mandates public school children be subjected to standardized assessments in reading and math in grades 3-8 and once in high school. Most schools test much more than that – even as early as kindergarten.

And since all of these assessments are purchased from private corporations, the testing material is ideological property. The students taking these exams – regardless of age – are no longer treated as children. They are clients entering into a contract.

He cites the copyright warning that students are required to read before they take the Pennsylvania tests. If they photograph or reproduce or copy any part of the test they may be find no less than $750 or as much as $30,000. Wow! Not too many children have that kind of dough to pay for a copyright violation.

The state warns students that they are not allowed to discuss the test with others either during the test or after it.

Singer writes:

Sure kids shouldn’t talk about the test with classmates DURING the testing session. Obviously! But why can’t they discuss it after the test is over!?

Kids aren’t allowed to say to their friends, “Hey! Did you get the essay question about ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’?”

They aren’t allowed to discuss how difficult it was or compare how each of them answered the questions?

These are children. If you think they aren’t talking, then you just don’t know kids. You don’t know people!

And why shouldn’t they talk about it? They just shared a stressful, common experience. Who wouldn’t want to compare it to what others went through so as to decide how your experience rates? Did you answer the questions well or not? Did you get a more difficult question than others? Did the thing that struck you as odd also hit others the same way?

Personally, I do not consider talking like this to be cheating. It’s just human nature.

He goes on to discuss the constraints imposed on teachers.

He asks:

Therefore, I must ask an important question of you, dear reader: Did I violate these rules by writing this very article? Is the piece you are reading right now illegal?

And he wonders: Why is the state exercising its powers to protect the testing corporations? Wouldn’t it be nice if the state were protecting its students and teachers?

Categories Cheating, Pennsylvania, Standardized Testing

NYC: Parents Who Opted Out Explain Why

By dianeravitch
April 21, 2015 //
57

In all Néw York state, Néw York City had one of the lowest opt out rates. Children and parents were warned by principals that their school would lose funds or might be closed. Immigrants didn’t want to have a run-in with the law. Children heard that they would not get into a good middle school without high test scores.

But some disregarded the threats.

In this post, some of the brave parents explain why they opted their children out.

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Press Contact:
Liz Rosenberg
917-697-1319
liz@girlray.com

Opt-Out Numbers in New York City Surge (a 64%+ increase from 2014) as Parents Question the Motives of Those Who Push High-Stakes Testing

Despite deep-pocketed corporate ad campaigns to discourage test refusal, the opt-out movement in New York City has grown exponentially in the past year. Parents who have collected statistics on opt out from their schools have calculated a 64%+ increase from 2014’s numbers, with 3124 refusals reported so far. This percentage, and the absolute number of refusals, is expected to rise, as it has every year, when the Department of Education delivers its official count in the months to come. Even more families are expected to hand in opt-out letters tomorrow, when NY State administers the Common Core Math tests to city 3rd-8th graders.

The public school families who gathered in sunny Prospect Park represented about 15 of the 93 city schools who have children opting out this year. Parent after parent—and one student—denounced the deleterious effects of a test-centered culture, and questioned the motives of those who insist on the propagation of such a culture.

Amy Plattsmier, who has children in elementary and middle school, underscored that the Opt Out movement is parent-led. “Contrary to what you might hear, this movement is not a creation of the teachers unions, nor are our children ‘caught up in the midst of a labor dispute.’ That narrative is trivializing, as it disregards the hard work of parents, who have been mobilizing against these tests in various ways for years.” Hitting a nerve with the other families present, Plattsmier asked, “Who is being enriched as our schools are increasingly stripped of enrichment?”

Next, Eleanor Rogers, a parent from Brooklyn’s P.S. 130, a Title 1 school, encapsulating a theme that echoed through the comments of all parents who followed, questioned the motives of those who enable the flow of corporate money into public education, “Stop enriching corporations who care more about making money than caring for our kids! We can’t match their millions. Their army of lobbyists, their radio commercials, their contributions to political campaigns… All we have is the power to opt out.”

Charmaine Dixon, a parent at PS 203 in Brooklyn, followed, “My school is a Title 1 school and our community has been sold a load of goods… We watch as test preparation and the focus on getting the right answer—not asking the right questions—crowd out real learning in our schools. I Question the Motive of those who would keep us from rising to our true potential.”

Katharine James, parent of a 2nd grader at another Title 1 school, Brooklyn’s PS 295, where 22% of the students are classified as ELLs, asked why the state tests are being given to students who are just learning English. “My daughter has several kids in her class who have only recently immigrated. I am not against high expectations for students, including ELLs. But if you are pretty certain that a child will fail a test–because 97% of all ELLs did just that last year–why would you insist on administering it? What would be your motivation?

Shiloh Gonsky, a 6th grader at MS 51 in Brooklyn, communicated her shock and disappointment when, on the first day of school her math teacher instructed students to pay attention “because what we were learning would be on “the test” in April. Wow. I was hoping to learn math because it’s interesting or cool, because I need math for life.”

Jody Drezner Alperin, mother of 2 children who attend PS 10, spoke about the secrecy that surrounds the tests. “I am diligent about what I feed my children, what activities they’re involved in, and even what movie I let them see at the theatre. I really question the test companies who claim their products are so great yet let no one vet them before they’re given to our kids. What are these companies hiding?”




She continued, “Before our school can’t give my kids aspirin without my permission. But imagine if the school announced that for two weeks every year, they were going to take our children out of their classroom — and no one, not parents, not the teacher, not the principal, NOT EVEN THE REGENTS THEMSELVES—would know what the children were doing instead of their regular classroom work. And there would never be any report on their activities afterward, no discussion or feedback on those two weeks except for numbers 1, 2, 3, or 4. Welcome to the state tests! When a Test Security Unit treats the administering of tests like a matter of national security, I Question the Motive.”

Reyhan Mehran, a PS 58 parent, talked about the ‘original opt outers’, “the rich and the powerful who have created high-stakes testing, have not only opted out of the test, they’ve opted out of public education altogether. They try to convince us that buying their test prep is necessary. Meanwhile, their children in private school have small class size, art, music, and creative project time. Believe me, I Question their Motive.”

Johanna Perez, whose children attend PS 146, Brooklyn New School, and PPAS in Manhattan, questioned the validity of the tests as effective measures. “When the American Statistical Association calls these tests invalid, as a parent, I Question the Motive.When my principal calls the tests developmentally inappropriate and intentionally confusing, I question the motive. When my 9-year old is given a test that is longer than the LSATs, I Question the Motive.”

Finally, Cynthia Copeland, whose child attends ICE, the Institute of Collaborative Education, asked why this untested assessment system would be pushed on schools in the first place when performance-based assessment, the alternative assessment used at ICE and the other schools of the NY State Performance Standards Consortium has a proven track record that “increases student curiosity, encourages teacher creativity and professionalism, and enhances our students’ education. Assessment that is instead based on high-stakes tests leads to an increase in dropouts, a decrease in student interest, and the trivialization of curriculum.” Copeland also asked if the myopic focus on testing was meant to distract from the massive underfunding we see in our city’s unequal, segregated schools.

WHO:

NYC OPT OUT is a loose coalition of parents throughout New York City who have come together to share information about the New York State tests and their effects on children, teachers, and schools. They support each other via the NYC Opt Out Facebook page.

—

Categories New York City, Opt Out

Walmart Closes Stores with Activist Workers for “Plumbing Repairs” UPDATE*

By dianeravitch
April 21, 2015 //
48

Fortune magazine reports that Walmart had closed down six of its stores where workers were agitating for better pay.

According to the giant chain, the stores needed plumbing repairs. The workers thought the move was retaliation for their activism for higher pay.

Walmart is owned by the Walton Family, each member a billionaire. The Walton Family Foundation is the biggest funder of vouchers and charters and organizations that advocate for them, in the nation.

The retail giant laid off 2,200 workers last week after temporarily closing five stores for plumbing repairs. Workers aren’t buying that rationale.

Wal-Mart workers are fighting back against the retailer’s decision last week to close five stores in four states for what the company says are plumbing repairs.

Workers at the company’s Pico Rivera, Calif. store who are associated with OUR Walmart, a group that advocates for better pay, say the closings are “retaliatory” in nature. They filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board on Monday, claiming that the termination of more than 500 employees at the Pico Rivera Walmart constituted an unfair labor practice.

Last week, the retail giant, which employs 1.3 million workers in the United States, temporarily closed five stores—two in Texas and one each in California, Florida, and Oklahoma—for six months of plumbing repairs. The stores closed at 7 p.m. on April 13, which gave workers just a few hours notice that they were losing their jobs. The company provided two months of paid leave for both full-time and part-time workers. Employees could try to transfer to a different Walmart location during that time. Full-time workers who fail to find another Walmart job are eligible for severance starting June 19, but part-time workers aren’t entitled to that benefit….

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which backs OUR Walmart, is listed as the filing party on the NLRB complaint, which claims that Wal-Mart targeted the Pico Rivera store because it has been “the center of concerted action by [workers] to improve wages and working conditions for all Walmart [workers] around the country.” The Pico Rivera store was the site of OUR Walmart’s first strike in 2012; workers at that location have participated in strikes and civil disobedience ever since.

Good grief, those workers might even want a union! Can’t have that!

*the original title had a Freudian slip, saying “schools” intend of “stores”

Categories Education Reform

This Weekend: A Coalition Meets in Chicago to Reform the Reformers

By dianeravitch
April 21, 2015 //
5

Do you want to learn how to reform the reformers? Julian Vasquez Heilig explains why it is urgent to reform the current wave of failed reforms in this article in Catalyst-Chicago:

The predominance of the data and evidence is clear: School “reformers” have failed spectacularly in Chicago and elsewhere over the past decade. Politicians and corporate interests have pressed for failing policies that have created an unprecedented effort to privately control public education by demonizing teachers, undermining the democratic role of parents, closing schools and reinventing public schools as testing factories.

Education policies promoting private control and profit in education have continued unabated with support from Democrats and Republicans alike. Claiming to be dedicated to making children “college and career ready,” these corporate entities, with the help of elected and appointed officials at the national, state and local level, are destroying the very institutions that should be dedicated to providing all children with the free, comprehensive and supportive public schools they need and deserve to live their lives to the fullest.

Their goals are becoming more clear: to turn public schools into profit centers for corporate investors. In contrast, across the nation there is a growing coalition of community leaders, academics, and other stakeholders leading the conversation to reform education reformers’ reforms.

Hundreds of these education stakeholders from across the nation will gather in Chicago April 25-26 for the second annual conference of the Network for Public Education (NPE). Founded by Diane Ravitch, an education historian, best-selling author and renowned public education advocate, NPE has served as a focal point for those seeking to support public schools and push back against profit and private control of public schools.

Come to Chicago this weekend, and meet parents, teachers, and committed supporters of public education. The Network for Public Education is holding its second annual meeting. Read here about how to register.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Network for Public Education

Peggy Robertson of United Opt Out Responds to the New York Times’ Article

By dianeravitch
April 21, 2015 //
44

This comment was posted on the blog by Peggy Robertson, founder of United Opt Out, in response to the New York Times’ article implying that the Opt Out movement is led by the teachers’ unions.

Peggy Robertson writes:

Opt out is led by parents, teachers, students and citizens. When United Opt Out National began over four years ago we were simply a facebook page with a file for each state. Within hours our FB group page was flooded with opt out requests and now we have opt out leaders all over the country and grassroots opt out groups popping up everywhere. I think Florida has 25 at this point – probably more since I last checked – and mind you they did this all on their own. UOO has simply been a catalyst and a support. What is even more fascinating, and sad, is that UOO has reached out to the unions many times, and never received a response. You will notice that United Opt Out National is rarely mentioned in recent articles. I think that’s because we represent the people. The power of the people. UOO has no funding (heck I paid for our website for the first two years pretty much on my own). When our website was destroyed last year guess who helped UOO fund/rebuild it? The people. No corporations. No unions. The people – the citizens of this country – for free – and with truth and heart – have helped us to create fifty state opt out guides. The citizens have helped us to continually update and alert folks to opt out situations across the country. The people have helped us create essential guides, opt out letters, and social media campaigns. The fact that this is happening by the people, for the people, with no funding, is true democracy and is a dangerous thing. Folks would much prefer that we are sheeple and that we are incapable of strategically planning a nationwide opt out movement. Guess what? We did it. All of us. That makes us dangerous. That makes the media/corporations want to co-opt and shut down our work. A mass movement of civil disobedience that is running through our country like a tidal wave in an attempt to save our democracy is indeed a powerful force that no corporation can shut down. Let’s keep pushing forward. Solidarity to all of you.

Categories Opt Out, Parents, Standardized Testing, Teachers, Unions

Wendy Lecker: Segregated Charter Schools and Hypocrisy about Civil Rights in Connecticut

By dianeravitch
April 21, 2015 //
5

Wendy Lecker, a civil rights attorney who lives in Connecticut, writes here about the hypocritical claim by charter schools that they are a part of the civil rights movement of our day. She points out that charter schools in Connecticut are hyper segregated and are setting back the clock on civil rights.

She writes:

Education “reformers” often proclaim they are carrying on the tradition of great civil rights leaders, employing the rhetoric of that movement while in reality pushing measures that exacerbate inequality and impact most harshly on children and communities of color-like school closures, privatization, and over-testing. Last week, noted civil rights expert Gary Orfield, of UCLA’s Civil Rights Project, issued a report on Connecticut school integration that included an indictment of the practices of Connecticut’s most-practiced purveyors of civil rights doublespeak — charter schools. The report also called out state officials for their willful blindness to charter school practices.

The report, titled “Connecticut School Integration,” praised the state for some of the strides made in desegregating schools. However, it noted the well-documented “hyper-segregation” of charter schools, which undermines Connecticut’s progress on integration. The report further remarked that national education policies, including the expansion of charter schools, ignore race and poverty and have “consistently failed” to meet the goal of improving education for our neediest children.

Connecticut law on segregation is far-reaching. While the federal constitution only prevents intentional segregation, our Supreme Court, in the 1996 decision in Sheff v. O’Neill, prohibited “unorchestrated,” i.e. de facto segregation. Thus, state officials have an affirmative obligation not just to prevent intentional segregation, but to eliminate even unintentional segregation.

Most Connecticut charters are intensely segregated. They routinely fail to serve English Language Learners, students with disabilities and often our most impoverished students.

Yet, as the Civil Rights Project writes, Connecticut state officials have refused to do anything to stem the tide of charter school segregation….

School integration is fundamental to advancing the democratic purpose of education. As the court noted in the Sheff decision: “If children of different races and economic and social groups have no opportunity to know each other and to live together in school, they cannot be expected to gain the understanding and mutual respect necessary for the cohesion of our society.”

Decades of evidence prove that school integration achieves this goal, reducing stereotypes and enabling adults to function successfully in a variety of settings. The benefits of school integration are more lasting and meaningful than the empty pursuit of higher test scores….

In his report, Dr. Orfield exhorts the state to bring charter schools in line with Connecticut’s law and policies against segregation and to ensure that charter operators live up to their “civil rights responsibilities under state and federal law.” He even suggests pursuing litigation against charters that receive public funds, yet operate segregated schools in violation of Connecticut law.

Given the unwillingness of state leaders to do anything about charter school segregation, communities may have no choice but to look to the courts. In December, the Delaware ACLU filed a federal complaint against charter school segregation. One can only hope that a civil rights organization here will follow the lead of the Delaware ACLU and pursue a real civil rights agenda when it comes to school segregation in Connecticut.

Categories Education Reform

Eva’s Success Academy Raises $9.3 Million in One Night

By dianeravitch
April 21, 2015 //
106

Sadly, Governor Andrew Cuomo was unable to give the keynote speech at the fund-raising dinner for Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter chain because he was leading a trade delegation to Cuba, but the charter chain still raised $9.3 million from her supporters in the hedge-fund community.

 

Education activist Leonie Haimson reports a story that appears behind a paywall at capitalnewyork.com. Be sure the read the report embedded at the end of the story below, about the hedge-fund managers and conservatives who support Success Academy. The report was compiled by the “HedgeClippers,” a group that calls itself “dark money’s newest nightmare.” The report lists the 50 hedge fund managers, spouses, and allies who contribute to Success Academy.

 

by Jessica Bakeman, Eliza Shapiro and Conor Skelding

 

SUCCESS ACADEMY’S $9.3 M. NIGHT—Capital’s Eliza Shapiro and Conor Skelding: “The Success Academy charter school network raised $9.3 million at its third annual spring benefit on Monday night, according to an attendee, up from $7.7 million at last year’s benefit. The figure was announced by Dan Loeb, a hedge fund manager who serves as the chairman of Success’ board of directors. The event was held at Cipriani in midtown Manhattan. Congressman Hakeem Jeffries delivered the keynote address at the benefit, in lieu of Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was slated to give the keynote before his trade visit to Cuba was planned for the same day.

 

“Jeffries, who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens, is a longtime supporter of charter schools. ‘I stand here because I unequivocally support quality public education and that’s what Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy provide,’ Jeffries said during his speech, according to a quote posted on Success’ Twitter account. ‘It’s easier to raise strong children than it is to repair broken men,’ he also said.

 

“Television host Katie Couric, Weekly Standard founder William Kristol, California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, Rep. Gregory Meeks of Queens and former Department of Education chancellor Joel Klein also attended the benefit, according to the attendee and Twitter posts. Loeb, philanthropist Eli Broad, and Campbell Brown, the television anchor turned education reformer, spoke. Brown sits on Success’ board of directors. Success’ controversial founder and C.E.O. Eva Moskowitz addressed the crowd, asking audience members to ‘visit our schools and become an ambassador for education reform,’ according to Success’ Twitter feed.” [PRO] http://capi.tl/1E4tvFR

 

—Meanwhile, “an advocacy group affiliated with the Alliance for Quality Education, a teachers’ union-backed organization, has released a report on the donors and board members of the Success Academy charter school network. The report, released by the group HedgeClippers, details the well-documented support the controversial network has received from hedge fund managers in particular. HedgeClippers describes itself as ‘dark money’s newest nightmare’ and is backed by the Strong Economy for all Coalition, which is, in turn, partially funded by teachers’ unions, including the United Federation of Teachers and New York State United Teachers.

 

“The report argues that ‘many of Success Academy’s hedge fund board members contribute to political causes that harm the population that Success claims to serve’ by supporting various conservative causes. … Success C.E.O. Eva Moskowitz has responded to criticism about the network’s donors by pointing to the long history of philanthropic giving to education causes, and noting that hedge fund managers also give to organizations that support parks, museums and domestic violence centers.” Capital’s Eliza Shapiro: http://capi.tl/1DEfnBQ

Categories Corporate Reformers, Cuomo, Andrew, Harlem Success Academy

Carol Burris Discusses Some of the Worst Questions on the Pearson Common Core Tests

By dianeravitch
April 21, 2015 //
55

Carol Burris, principal of South Side High School, has been an outspoken critic of both the Common Core standards (which she once supported, even wrote a book about them) and the testing associated with them. She is a leader of the Opt Out movement on Long Island in New York.

In this article for Valerie Strauss’s Answer Sheet blog, Burris reveals some of the most problematic questions on the Common Core ELA tests, administered last week. So many of the questions and the reading passages are now circulating on the Internet that it is hard to believe that Pearson thinks its tests are secure. They are not.

The article includes links to all the items mentioned.

Burris writes:

Disgusted teachers and parents are defying the “gag order” and talking about the tests, anonymously, on blogs. The sixth-grade test has consistently come under fire, especially during Day 3 when an article entitled, “Nimbus Clouds: Mysterious, Ephemeral, and Now Indoors” from the Smithsonian Magazine appeared on one version of the test.

Here is a passage from the article:

“As a result, the location of the cloud is an important aspect, as it is the setting for his creation and part of the artwork. In his favorite piece, Nimbus D’Aspremont, the architecture of the D’Aspremont-Lynden Castle in Rekem, Belgium, plays a significant role in the feel of the picture. “The contrast between the original castle and its former use as a military hospital and mental institution is still visible,” he writes. “You could say the spaces function as a plinth for the work.””

You can read the entire article here.

The genius at Pearson who put that article on the sixth-grade test should take his nimbi and his plinth and go contemplate his belly button in whatever corner of that Belgian castle he chooses. The members of the State Education Department who approved the article’s inclusion should go with him.

Other complaints include:

* requiring fourth graders to write about the architectural design of roller coasters and why cables are used instead of chains

* a sixth-grade passage from “That Spot” by Jack London, which included words and phrases such as “beaten curs,” “absconders of justice,” surmise, “savve our cabin,” and “let’s maroon him”

* a passage on the third-grade test from “Drag Racer” which has a grade level of 5.9 and an interest level of 9-12th grade.

The eighth-grade test required 13-year-olds to read articles on playground safety. Vocabulary included: bowdlerized, habituation techniques, counterintuitive, orthodoxy, circuitous, risk averse culture, and litigious. One of the articles, which was from The New York Times, can be found here. Here is an excerpt:

Paradoxically, we posit that our fear of children being harmed by mostly harmless injuries may result in more fearful children and increased levels of psychopathology.

I am sure that 13-year old ESL students were delighted by that close read.

[Guess the subjects deemed too ‘sensitive’ for new Common Core tests]

And who will be scoring this new generation of tests? If you have a bachelor’s degree, you can ‘soar to new heights’ working either the day or night shift with Pearson making $13 an hour. Or, if you would like to spend some quality time in Menands, New York, the temp agency, Kelly Services, will hire you for $11.50 an hour to score. No degree? No problem. The company’s last ad on Craig’s list for test scorers didn’t require one.
With these exams, the testing industry is enriching itself at the expense of taxpayers, all supported by politicians who self-righteously claim that being subjected to these Common Core tests is a “civil right.” Nonsense. It is clear that none of this will stop unless the American public puts an end to this. I have only two words left to say—opt out.

Categories Common Core, Standardized Testing

Astonishing News from Newark: Sweet Deal for Charters’ “Graduate” School

By dianeravitch
April 21, 2015 //
15

Bob Braun, veteran journalist, reports on his blog that Newark Superintendent Cami Anderson has decided that teachers can earn bonuses only by registering at Relay (GSE), a school created by charter teachers for charter teachers.

Relay claims to be a “graduate school of education” but it has no one on its faculty with a doctorate, no researchers, no expectations that students will take courses in child development, cognitive psychology, the history and politics of education, the sociology of education, and will never need to interact with a recognized scholar. Students will learn about how to raise test scores and other secrets of teachers in no-excuses charter schools.

Braun writes:

New Jersey universities and colleges that offer graduate education programs are the next targets of what Gov. Chris Christie and Newark schools superintendent Cami Anderson call educational “reform.” But what they are doing to block Newark teachers from earning credits at these traditional institutions looks–and smells–like insiders using their power to help old friends make money in the good old Christie ExxonMobil sort of way.

According to the Newark Teachers Union (NTU), Anderson–at least for the moment– is insisting that stipends to teachers for taking graduate education programs be limited to those attending courses at an institution known as Relay-GSE, a free-standing operation with roots in Teach for America and the KIPP schools. Relay-GSE announced Anderson’s “approval” of the school in a press release March 3.

Anderson was, of course, an executive with Teach for America–and the KIPP charter people who operate TEAM Academy charter schools are such good friends with Anderson that she sold them a public school at a discount….

It is headquartered–and accredited and licensed–in New York. It is not listed in New Jersey’s official list of colleges and universities offering teacher education programs but, of course, any student can attend an out-of-state school. In any event, Relay-GSE now lists a Newark branch at 10 Washington Place which just happens to be the location of North Star Academy and the Newark Charter School Fund.

Cozy.

This is how the Newark campus of Relay-GSE describes itself:

“Relay Newark is the graduate school for teachers who want to close opportunity gaps and fight for social justice. By combining in-person practice, performance-based assessments and rich online learning, we help teachers become more effective for their students in some of New Jersey’s most challenging urban areas.”

This suggests that any teacher who would rather take graduate education courses at Rutgers, Seton Hall, Montclair State, Kean, or any of the other established schools of education is not a fighter “for social justice” and therefore does not deserve to be subsidized.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Newark

Teachers React to Los Angeles Poll on Tenure

By dianeravitch
April 21, 2015 //
23

Recently the Los Angeles Times published a poll showing that most people dislike tenure, probably thinking it means a job for life, protecting incompetent lazy teachers. Do they know that tenure means due process, the right to a hearing before an independent person? I don’t know of another nation where education leaders are so obsessed with finding and firing teachers. Why aren’t they obsessed with recruiting well-prepared teachers, supporting them, mentoring them, and retaining them? These results are the direct consequence of the corporate reform mentality, displayed in Race to the Top and “Waiting for ‘Superman.'” Keeping this narrative going discourages people from entering teaching–a very difficult and low-paid career choice with long hours–and encourages veteran teachers to leave. We are approaching a crisis where the question will be: How can we persuade people to enter and stay in teaching? But of course, the entrepreneurs will be ready with online learning so that one paraprofessional can oversee 100 students. Maybe that’s the point.

 

Here are some letters written in response to the poll. Notice the letter from the teacher affiliated with the Gates-funded TeachPlus, who is willing to jettison job protections for all teachers because she knows a few “bad” teachers.

Categories Teacher Tenure
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