At its annual meeting, the Massachusetts Teachers Association endorsed the right of parents to opt their child out of state testing.
“Delegates to the 2015 MTA Annual Meeting have voted to support the right of parents to opt their children out of high-stakes standardized testing.
“The Annual Meeting, which drew more than 1,100 delegates from all over Massachusetts to the Hynes Convention Center in Boston on May 8 and May 9, also featured wide-ranging discussion of education issues, including the state takeover of the Holyoke Public Schools. The delegates heard speeches by award recipients and a keynote address by Seattle educator and social activist Jesse Hagopian.
“On Friday, the delegates passed a new business item that requires MTA President Barbara Madeloni and Vice President Janet Anderson to send a letter to Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester and state legislators stating the following MTA positions:
“That parents in Massachusetts deserve the choice to opt their public school students out of high-stakes standardized assessments.
“That districts should be required to provide all parents with yearly written information explaining their right to opt students out of assessments.
“That students who opt out should not be included in data used by state or federal entities in “grading” schools.
That no parent or student should be penalized because of a parental decision to opt out.
“That no educator should be disciplined for discussing with students, parents or community members the options for opting students out of high-stakes tests.
“Madeloni said the opt-out vote by the delegates representing more than 110,000 educators in Massachusetts — including preK-12 educators, educators in the public higher education system and retired educators — is indicative of the growing consensus around the country that standardized high-stakes testing is out of control.
“Supporting the right to opt out is one of the strongest statements we can make as educators against standardized testing,” Madeloni said.
“We need to support the parents and students who decide to do this. The MTA will vigorously defend any educator who is disciplined for supporting the right of parents and students to opt out. The more people step up and speak out, the clearer will be the message to our legislators that the people of Massachusetts want to put a stop to the madness of standardized testing,” she said.
“Standardized testing is distorting the goals of public education and choking the creativity and joy that should be at the center of teaching and learning,” Madeloni added.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And here we see the difference between true union leaders like Madeloni and Lewis vs. co-opted “leaders” like Weingarten and Eskelson-Garcia.
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Interesting. What is the difference as you see it?
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We’ve somehow reach the point where we have to petition government to support parental rights and allow teachers to advocate for students.
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This MTA member supports Barbara Madeloni and Opt Out Freedom.
My daughter did not take the PARCC ELA back in March and she will not take the PARCC math test this coming week.
Let the truth be told.
Let freedom ring.
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I agree fully that standardized testing along with the power it has been given is distorting the education process for all kids. That’s why I strongly support “opt out” However, I also agree that simply opting out without a viable alternative gives the impression and I hope not the reality that we are ducking accountability.
I understand the implications of the test and the damage it has done to all kids. The implication of the lack of accountability that assures parents that their children and the children in their schools are moving forward is of equal importance.
In order to take kids away from the effects of the test we must present a viable alternative that assesses kids, schools and teachers in a supportive and fair manner. My book provides talking points but more importantly this alternative must come from those in the trenches, the teachers,parents and kids. If they don’t do it, who will?
Without the effort to provide fair and equal accountability, those who support “opt out” are doomed to a backlash that labels them as ducking accountability as well as racist. To assure those labels don’t stick, we must start that conversation immediately. Without that conversation the labels will appear true.
And the backlash of which I speak has begun with recent statements by the civil rights groups and other comments I heard about the conference in Chicago. The bottom line question is are those who support “opt out” really acting in the best interest of kids, or will we be seen as self serving.
I, for one, will always act in the best interest of kids and strongly support a viable alternative to the testing fiasco along with “opt out”.
Which side are you on? The agenda of children or the agenda of adults? I believe we will all choose children and begin the conversation now!
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“I hope not the reality that we are ducking accountability.”
and
“. . . we must present a viable alternative that assesses kids, schools and teachers in a supportive and fair manner.”
Anyone who suggests that teachers are “ducking accountability” should be called out for the liars that they are and told they are full of shit, because that is how it is. Quit namby pambying to those bastards who lie through their teeth to get the edudeformers and privateers agenda put into place. Every effin time we, the true educators should be saying: “What you’re saying is bullshit and quit lying. Now let’s have a discussion.”
There are many viable alternatives that have been around for decades, this ain’t friggin rocket science and I’m not talking rubrics, drive by evaluations and other bullshit practices. I’m talking professional collegial discussions between those who evaluate (even though most of them have no effin clued how to do that as the vast majority of adminimals are no more than clueless friggin brown nosers) and the classroom teachers.
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There is no viable alternative that I know of that we can stand behind. How you respond says more about you than about those who you scream at. Why are you afraid of a viable alternative designed by teachers.
You say the alternatives are out there, but where? never never land?
The back lash has begun and this is your only answer?
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I have never been afraid of a viable alternative “developed by teachers”. Actually that is not right, I am terrified by that thought because most teachers are GAGAers willing to let the adminimals dictate to them how they should think.
Is what I have said harsh? You better believe it and more people need to be that harsh in discussing all these various insane educational malpractices. Yes, I’m calling out all those GAGAers and willing executioners of educational malpractices.
Screw being “civil” when the other side pretends to be that way, demands us to be “civil” while digging the knife deep into our side.
I don’t countenance being a victim of a knifing.
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Read this, come up with your own thoughts and take back your profession. Start with the Collins amendment to ESEA https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781475817713
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By the way, this is 2015, not decades ago
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Cap,
I don’t understand your point of that comment, please expand and explain.
Thanks,
Duane
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you said there have been alternatives for decades. They don’t count and are out of date becuase they didn’t work either. I also agree accusations are BS, however, we must not just do like the T party did on the ACA, just say no w/o standing by an alternative
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full of doodoo
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Cap Lee — ” I also agree that simply opting out without a viable alternative gives the impression and I hope not the reality that we are ducking accountability”
The objections to your statement are due to the inherent assumption that [all] American schools are in need of a method of accountability currently unavailable to them.
Perhaps we can agree that “accountability” means taxpayers are satisfied they’re getting their money’s worth.
Those many [the majority of] American districts who graduate a large proportion of students, and whose students in large proportion go on to college or job, are already providing satisfactory accountability stats to their residents. Within those districts are taxpayers w/o kids, or kids long-graduated; they are happy because good local district stats means their property values are maintained.
I speculate that these good/ better/ best districts also have satisfactory methods in place for evaluation of employees. One doesn’t really need a measuring stick, for it operates as markets typically do: pay is higher, as is the quality [ed-prep/ ed-background] of students; such districts attract well-qualified applicants.
The ‘problem’ with US schools as defined by many is that we score middle or just below in PISA contests. I’m going to throw that argument out: US’ international placement is the same as it has been since 1961 (middle or just below, sometimes worse)– despite crashing economical successes for graduates during those years, jobwise, research-wise, Nobel-prize-wise, patents-wise, etc. There is no correlation. Meanwhile the stable long-term ed-test results (NAEP, via sampling) show steady improvement in all ethnic groups/ SES over most of those decades. (Recent slowing of increase, then flat-lining, correspond closely to misguided ‘reforms’ which have replaced a month or more [10%] of curriculum-learning with increased testing/ test-prep).
BUT: what of the ever-growing [as our GDP shrinks] minority– perennially poor districts in rural outposts & inner-cities, who look to public ed as their only ladder to better opportunities– many of whom look to their neighborhood school, shudder, & beg for an alternative?
[Within that group are those in evangelical/ fundamentalist regions who wish to take their share of public funds & use them for religious schools. It’s against the constitution; they can do it on their own dime or homeschool I don’t care.]
Long preamble to bottom line: there is a block of school districts, mostly in inner cities some in rural who are getting a lousy education. THIS SHOULD BE THE ONLY FOCUS.
For 30 yrs or so the experiment has been to have the state take over the mgt of low-income/ poor-outcome districts. In some cities (e.g., DC, Newark), many more $ have been poured into them. Results: spotty. You may see improvement via better teachers & programming, but simultaneously, physical facilities have been allowed to fall into shambles– that’s a wash. Meanwhile the financial arrgt has taxed the majority higher, leading many who are PERFECTLY HAPPY W/THEIR DISTRICTS to cry: where’s the ‘accountability’?
So. It’s a long post & belaboring the obvious. My point is: accountability is a question/problem in poorly-performing areas, which are in fact low-income areas. We didn’t need NCLB/RTT testing; we already knew that.
The answer never would be: test the hell out of the entire country to see who doesn’t score well– if that doesn’t work, subject the entire country to new national stds & double-down on the testing– in order to understand the ‘problem’ better? Use test results to close schools, fire teachers [that’ll show ’em?] [offer substandard privatized charters?]
I can see you get that, from your post. You perhaps agree that the test/close/fire armageddon is counter-productive. Given the un-democratic, top-down, take-no-prisoners fashion in which it has been implemented, it is not a stretch to get that families– whose input to legislators, marches, protests have not only been ignored but poo-poo’ed by fed & state DOE’s– are left w/exactly 1 recourse: opt out of the tests– deny the bureaucracy its unnecessary ‘accountability’ data.
Why do you then come to us families & say opt-out is no good without ‘offering an alternative’? No one is allowing us alternative input. No one is allowing teachers, principals, superintendents, nor educational researchers alternative input.
ASK.
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Wow! Angry, are you? These two quotes that you just referenced made you use all this profanity? I would like to read a more respectable critique to Cap’s argument for a viable alternative. Seems reasonable. And if not, why??
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“The bottom line question is are those who support “opt out” really acting in the best interest of kids, or will we be seen as self serving.”
NO! that’s not the “bottom line” question. That’s pure bogus bullshit and we should call them out every time that crap spews forth from their mouths and writings.
The reason we are supposedly seen as self serving (and I don’t agree with that analysis at all) is that we’ve allowed the bullying bastards to get away with saying that shit without us calling them out. What we need to do is CALL THEM OUT FOR THE LYING BASTARDS THEY ARE-EVERY FRIGGIN TIME THEY SAY THAT CRAP!!
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The question remains unanswered. I believe it is not self serving but where is the viable alternative?
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That is up to each individual district to figure out. Who am I to tell them what to do???
I do not claim to have all the answers, just too many questions that hardly ever get answered in a logic-rational fashion.
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I developed a pathway for localities to bring education home
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Cap – the “alternative” for “accountability” is what it has always been. Parents know how their children are doing in school and they are free to come talk to teachers, principals and other school figures. To the extent the community genuinely cares how the school is doing, they are welcome to come for school plays, concerts, art exhibits, science fairs, open houses and other sorts of open-to-the-community events (which, other than parents of kids in the school, they never do, so that tells you how interested they really are). Any other sort of “accountability”, especially comparing schools against each other, and especially using false “metrics” like tests, is, as Duane said, bovine excrement. It’s creating a false “crisis” and the only alternative needed is for politicians to allocate adequate and equitable funding and other resources to all schools and let teachers teach, and for people to mind their own business.
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What has always been has failed dramatically. As per the drop out rate in urban areas
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bull doodoo
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No method of assessment is going to decrease urban drop out rates. That’s a function of the poverty of the students in the school and the underfunding/underresourcing of the schools. Fix those problems and you’ll see urban drop out rates go down.
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We cannot wait for poverty to be fixed. When assessment becomes real rather than artificial, that information can be used to support teachers and students.
However, assessment alone will not solve the problem. No longer may we throw up our hands and say “wait for poverty to be fixed” while thousands of kids are pushed into the streets. That is unconscionable and immoral. Instead, we must recognize the effects of poverty and develop a system of education that “takes kids from where they are” at their best individual rate.
You are correct under the current system very little will help. But under the system design I put in my book, the skills and abilities of every child is respected. The failure system that pushes kids into the streets is dramatically changed and the genius in every child is allowed to surface, when they are ready, not on a common core schedule.
This is a system that when the bar is raised, it is raised on an individual basis. What kind of nut case would raise a bar for everyone at the same time when all kids develop differently. Don’t they know that it simply pushes those reaching for the lower rung of the ladder into the streets?
And what is wrong with a child not graduating “on time” as long as they graduate whether it be a month later or six months later. Under the plan in my book, that is not only allowed but is applauded. And they don’t have to wait a full year when skills could be gained in a month or two.
The time for systemic change is now!
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Cap @ 5/11, 3:21 pm,
“When assessment becomes real rather than artificial,”
What is a “real” assessment? And, concurrently, what is an “artificial” assessment?
For me the best/right/true means of assessing is what Noel Wilson refers to as the “Responsive Frame” (of reference or conceptual starting point):
“Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.”
The “Responsive Frame” then, by it’s very nature allows for the process to be “contextualized” to/for each student, in whatever subject/grade level and class and enables the learner to learn to self assess and determine further his/her own concerns and needs in learning. Are we willing to pay enough to have time for teachers and students to co-exist in a mutually enhancing environment? Hell, the costs of the current educational standards and standardized testing regime could probably cover it-I’d have to examine that aspect more closely.
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Exactly, real assessment
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Supposedly “real” assessment tied to standards, eh, like CCSS? They may be real but they are still COMPLETELY INVALID as an assessment exercise.
But you can’t understand that as it appears you’ve got plenty to offer (for a price) to help others institute those educational malpractices. As Sinclair noted “It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
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Got no salary, nice try My union got me a great pension. despues cinco anos en Colombia, entiendo no es troll. nor am I a fire breathing female dragon. As you use excuses like blame everyone you see, to duck accountability, the reality is, my agenda for my entire life has been children. You might try it some time
And what have you done for free lately. Here’s what I have done http://www.funprosefam.com
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If you were paying attention you would realize that I am against CC standards, I am for opt out and for accountability that is local on an even playing field. So continue this argument with your other self, your fictional adversary.
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Japanse lesson study is a viable alternative to our current accountability system. The Japanese have created a model for professional development that serves as an accountability system. In their system, accountability is a verb.
The Japanese respect their teachers. They believe that teaching is highly intellectual similar to the fields of law and medicine. What teachers learn during lesson study research cycles directly impacts educational policy and curricula in Japan. Embedded within their system, is a culture of respect for those who work in the intellectually intense and emotionally intricate environments of classrooms.
Our concepts of accountability need adjusting in America.
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Yes they do and thanks for keeping that conversation going
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How would you make the adjustment? What would you suggest?
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I am a person from a country you mention.
While it is true that teachers are respected in the classroom, teachers are at the same time treated as beck and call from the central education authority–MEXT–which is equivalent to DOE.
Speaking of accountability, I am very skeptical that the government of Japan under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and LDP leaders is capable of setting a clear guideline for that–regarding their historical record of denial, scapegoating, and foreigner-bashing (mainly, Americans and westerners)practice. Japan has been criticized for its child-like behavior for deliberate cover-up and unwillingness to engage in historical past for over 30 years.
Like Duncan, Abe is a pro-reformer from head to toe. He is a pro-rightwing politician who has a great-grandfather of Class-A war criminal-turned-into prime minister after WWII. He curries favor with America on bi-lateral national security in Asia/Pacific, on one hand, but barks like mad dog over specific issue(national history).
The MEXT just imposed a sanction on history textbooks that reflect the government’s partisan position on specific issues–Senkaku/Takeshima islands, comfort women, etc. This effectively discourages teachers and students from engaging critical thinking in classroom practice.
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Teachers must arise to assure accountability on an even playing field without the continued federal effort to control education
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You are putting teaching practice and national government’s education policy other way around. Japanese education system is under sole control of national government–not local/prefectural. All teachers are subject to the order of MEXT on everything including textbooks and instructional guidance. That follow-the-order mantra has put undue constraint on many Japanese teachers, regarding instructional practice. This is obvious from English language education, social studies, and even Japanese language arts.
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I’m still wondering about this:
“PARCC test scores have new meaning for students who apply to and are accepted at Southern Arkansas University. Starting soon, a student’s score could allow them to skip taking a placement test, bypass remedial courses in English and math and save them money by not having to take those classes.
On May 6, Southern Arkansas University joined the ranks of the PARCC Pioneers and formally incorporated the PARCC assessments into their placement policies and practices. PARCC Pioneers are colleges and universities that agree to collect and use scores from the PARCC assessment, along with the information they use in their current placement systems, to assess student readiness for college-level coursework. ”
How is Common Core experimental or open to adjustment if more and more colleges rely on it? It seems to me that the more it is incorporated as THE measure of college and career ready the more the one to five or one to four scale will be relied upon as THE measure of students. It’ll be awfully difficult to unwind that mindset once it takes hold and I think it’s almost inevitable it migrates down to earlier and earlier grades.
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The whole accountability thing is a metaphor gone awry.
Since 2001 federal policies, state and local policies have taken the “outcomes only” turn, results not excuses, perform x, y, x irrespective of resources.
Accounting requires a look at inputs, resources, investments, not just outcomes.
Look at any corporate report to see how these organizations explain their results. Note that these reports always include a long list of factors that can influence their
capacity to produce results. These are categorized as risks, hazards, conditions that may influence performance. Among these are “government regulations,” access to resources, and so on.
All of these reports clearly have a proviso, “current results do not predict future results.” Then look at the outrageous compensation packages taken by the CEOs and executives, golden parachutes, perks, and many of these untethered to performance.
Look at the way the meaning of goodwill and intrinsic value is counted in a corporates context and totally ruled out of consideration in education.
There can be no doubt that a distorted view of corporate accountability has infected public education. The “results not excuses,” “outcomes only” ethos depends on characatures of students who have insufficient grit, teachers who are incompetent, schools as “failing,” and maintaining the fiction that test scores are objective measures of “performance” with equal utility in judging students, teachers, entire schools, leading and lagging states, and the economic fate of the nation. Nonsense. One metric does not fit all.
There can be no doubt that educational accountability depends on some bookkeeping, but the economists and policy makers with MBAs and no experience in classrooms are off the rails wrong to think that public education is simply a management problem, that test scores are objective, and that test scores are proper and nearly sufficient measues of the true value-added to the life of students, the importance of teachers and public schools in the well-being of this nation.
The metaphor of accountability, and the role of economists and statisticians in determining policies, has lead to a pervasive dehumanizing of public education. Schools are working at their best when they are functioning as a community, not as corporations, not as profit centers constructed to treat children only or primarily as “assists” or “liabilities,” as “human capital” with potentials for payoffs some one’s bottom line…or not.
A totally distorted view of accountability has been installed as if it is perfectly logical and OK when applied to education–in laws, regulations, explicit and implicit policies that focus on “outcomes only,” one side of an imagined ledger.
Jerry Garcia of ice cream fame had an awakening of sorts when someone reminded him that he can control for the quality of ingredients in making ice cream. Teachers do not have comparable quality control.
The wizards who make and increasingly purchase educational policy have decided that, if you cannot choose high quality students, you must insist that schools only employ “high quality” teachers…a phrase that is literally defined in economic terms… one who produces not just a gain in test scores from the beginning to the end of the year, but year over year increases in those scores…irrespective of resources, and without regard to the hard facts that students are individuals, not just ingredients in a supply chain.
Any authomatic assumption that educators must be held accountable for x, or , y, z, needs to be interrogated. At minimum there must be resistance to any outcomes only version of accountability. That one sided ledger-keeping is not legitimate in bookkeeping and makes a mockery of accounting.
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I read somewhere the other day that there is a “pop business culture” and that is absolutely true. It’s incredibly faddish and herd-like, it really is. If people in education think their “sector” is faddish they should take a look at management theories 🙂
I just think a lot of the rhetoric is really shallow and people would recognize that if they compared across sectors- that all ed reformers are doing is repeating “pop business culture” slogans. Applying them to education is new, but this “pop business culture” problem is not at all new. It’s the main criticism of US business- they focus on the next quarter rather than the next decade. All of the criticisms of the US private sector apply to ed reform. They just imported all the things that suck about that sector into education.
The whole “outcomes over inputs” simplification is part of that.
Duncan LOVES this stuff, which makes me respect his opinion less. It’s not “rigorous” at all. It’s repeating the most popular lines from the top ten business management theory books on the best seller list.
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The bottom line for me is it’s too faddish to apply to something as central and universal as public education. Private sector businesses can recover (or go out of business) from following fads like “disruptive innovation” but public schools could be permanently damaged from these huge experiments.
I don’t think ed reformers assess risk properly. Duncan is wrong. A high-risk, high (potential) reward strategy is a reckless approach to public schools. I think it’s a reckless approach to the private sector, too, but at least there tens of millions of children aren’t affected.
It’s irresponsible to apply private sector fads to US public schools.
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Could you please expound on the difference between “one year” and “year-to-year” growth. Seems to me that it will make a big difference which way a state like NY goes on this.
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Individual growth in a small pre and post test, confirmed by classroom achievement is the only way to use any kind of test. Small because it is a snap shot in time and is ready for immediate use by the teacher.
Pre and post because it is valuable to see the individual gains a student makes during a period of time.
We must remember, all kids have different test taking skills so the results must be compared to other assessments. Also it must be given locally. Can be given by an outsider for a new set of eyes on the students skills, but given locally so the information is readily available for teacher use.
Remember, assessment is only as good as the information gathered and it’s application to the education of the child. In the plan in my book the information is used, initially to support the student and the teachers effort to assure student success. It is also accountability to some extent after support is given to both student and teacher.
There are many variables to learning that must be explored to assure the success of the student. Home visits, medical checkups, etc can then be used in the best interest of the child. These variables may not be excuses for the lack of learning but understanding them will allow teachers to assure learning at the child’s best rate, with the support and the persistence needed for the ultimate goal of seeing the “light bulb” go off and student learning skyrocket.
Patience and persistence while we recognize that genius will unfold, not on a schedule determined by common core, but when the child is ready.
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Cap,
“Individual growth in a small pre and post test, confirmed by classroom achievement is the only way to use any kind of test.”
That supposed “growth” in the learning side of the teaching and learning process is a chimera, a duende that has been mal-appropriated from economic doctrine/idiology that has no basis in rationo-logical thought. Are there changes in a student’s “being”/consciousness that occur in/from the teaching and learning process? Of course, but to call it growth is a misnomer. And those changes are not measurable, (however they may be indicated/ascertained) with any test any more than the changes over time of one’s perception of love and love of one’s spouse or children. It just can’t be done.
Your usage of words like growth, pre and post test, and achievement belies a certain agenda, of which currently I can’t discern.
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Oh Duane
What a line of academic bull shit. The “growth” is only a change in 2nd class achievement, merely a small part of what schools need to do. 1st class growth is whole child achievement, some measurable, some not. A demonstration of how students can not only show what they have learned but more importantly show how they learn, how they use their skills to gather and organize information and make life decisions.
Although both 1st class and second class achievement are needed, it is the whole child that shows more real “growth”. And yes, growth can be used in this context. To hide behind a narrow definition of “growth” to seemingly assume that there can be no accountability is proof of a desire to duck accountability completely. Is it any wonder that civil rights groups are complaining?
But I admire your ability to transform yourself from the barroom, hard cursing, basher to an irrational pseudo intellectual
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“But I admire your ability to transform yourself from the barroom, hard cursing, basher to an irrational pseudo intellectual”
Those two don’t have to be mutually exclusive although it’s not really a “transformation”-it’s not like I have to step into a phone booth to change characters, more like two sides of a mill coin especially one with a hole in it.
But I’ll accept the compliment! Thanks!
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“What a line of academic bull shit.”
Please explain what the “standard” of measurement for the teaching and learning process. And what is the standard unit of measure in that process? Who has given the stamped seal of approval to/for that standard unit?
Tis not I who am playing fast and free with terminology. Since you insist on using the terminology of measurement (which puts such a nice shiny plastic scientific veneer on it all) for the teaching and learning process then I’m sure you can answer my questions.
“To hide behind a narrow definition of “growth” to seemingly assume that there can be no accountability is proof of a desire to duck accountability completely.”
Your ASSumption that I’m attempting to “duck accountability” by “hiding behind a narrow definition of growth” is udder nonsense. First my “duck accountability” is only to DU. Second, I’m too big to “hide my behind behind a narrow definition”.
Of course you wouldn’t have any pecuniary interest in not seeing educational standards, standardized testing and the grading of students being conceptually destroyed now would you?? Perhaps (and yes you’re welcome for the free publicity) maybe this: http://www.wholechildreform.com/
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Laura,
Great comments as usual. But (you knew that had to be coming, eh-ha ha), I would like to correct who the ice cream person was. It was Jamie Vollmer not “Jerry Garcia of ice cream fame”. For his description of the event watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9TUrHMZMno .
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Again you argue with yourself. Get rid of standardized testing, change standards that are deadlines for failure into learning goals that are guidelines for success done locally and individually, get rid of letter grades completely as well as grade levels that force failure onto students, destroy the concept of raising the bar that is the main reason kids are pushed into the street, take learning into the community where it is real outside the 4 walls of the “prison” and take the handcuffs off teachers so they can take back your profession. And develop accountability measures around that on an even playing field with support as the first step
Now, where do we differ?
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Colleges are snobs and will follow if we lead. I have had that conversation with university folk and they understand that the test is not an indicator of future success in college. They just take what they can get until we, from the grass roots, come up with something better. And that we must!
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“The ‘growth’ is only a change in 2nd class achievement, merely a small part of what schools need to do.” Well said!!
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Since the country still considers Massachusetts the intellectual hub of our country this is a big win for the Opt Out Movement.
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Glad to hear you think we’re considered the intellectual hub of the country, though I’m not sure the country thinks so. Anyway, I was proud to be at the MTA annual meeting and cast my vote in favor of the measure. Madeloni is great, and the membership is starting to show its strength as well.
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I’ve lived in MA and it’s certainly not the “intellectual hub of our country”. The “intellectual hub” of Amerika is the ocean front property that I own over at the Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri. Come join us for some irreally intellectual times!
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