Some of those who are offended by the idea that parents opt their children out of state tests have said that all children MUST take the test because “it’s the law.”
But Peter Greene says there is nothing in the law that says students MUST take the test. The law says that the state MUST give the tests.
Parents have the right to refuse. The state does not own their children. The state education department works for the public, not the other way around.
Even MaryEllen Elia recognizes that parents have the right to opt out. She will try to persuade them not to, but she cannot coerce them. She has no legal power to do so.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Peter green is absolutely correct in saying,
“Parents have the right to refuse. The state does not own their children. The state education department works for the public, not the other way around.”
Opting out is necessary for this insane testing to go completely away! Any compromise on testing continues to enrich Pearson and the educational – industrial complex, moneymaking machine! The only way to return your public schools to your community is to opt out of these unreliable and and unverifiable, common core aligned monstrosities, designed to systematically dismantled public education!:
http://unitedoptout.com
PARENTS HAVE THE POWER!!!
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We will be opting out again this year. No more state tests for us. Testing has become the be-all of school, with all learning seemingly focused on nailing those common core test items. All joy driven out of learning as kids learn to focus on developmentally inappropriate tasks that teach them how to write a rubric-maxing essay or parse confusing math problems and “show their work ” but only using methods that will max the rubric.
I live in NYC. I was vocal about opting out last year and have since heard from other parents at our school that they wished they’d opted their kids out and will do so this next year. Expect NYC opt out numbers to rise, most especially when parents see that opting out did not affect outcome of middle school admissions.
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Here’s what you can tell other parent in NYC:
We NYC teachers just got our “scores” in. There is a 2 point difference between developing and effective as far as test scores are calculated (whatever magical formula that is). Regardless of the lip service you’ll hear, your teachers this year will either be scrambling to get their heads above water or to stay afloat. Make no mistake, teachers will be teaching to a test that has NO validity and is not the kind of education Obama’s and Duncan’s kids receive – but it’s just dandy for your child. Our careers depend on it!
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There is an interesting tension though as parents don’t own the children either. The state can, and often does, use its police powers to force parents to do things the star believes are in the best interest of the child.
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TE, the state may force parents to do what is in the best interest of their child, in regards to their health. The tests in question have no scientific validity; they are politically required, by politicians, not by medical experts. The best interests of the child is best served by refusing the tests.
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And also require parents to educate their children.
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The state may require parents to educate their child but parents decide where and how. If if the state requires students to take a test that has no scientific necessity or evidence (Néw York has no such law, maybe Kansas does), then parents have a right to say no.
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The state limits a parents ability to determine where and how a child is educated in New York. Any education a child receives must be “substantially equivalent” to the instruction the children would receive in the local public school. Failure to do this could result in fines and/or imprisonment
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TE, ever heard of home schooling? Do you think that being schooled at home is equivalent to attending a school with qualified teachers of physics, calculus, French, Spanish, world history, as well as a gymnasium and a full program of clubs, sports and extracurricular activities?
You are getting ridiculous in your nit-picking. There is no comparability between a medical requirement imposed on families by the state and a testing requirement imposed only on children in public schools but not on children in private schools. If testing is a scientific requirement, it would be universal. In fact, most Americans went through public schools where they did not take annual standardized tests. Such a requirement is not found in any of the world’s top performing nations.
I am not sure what your point is, other than to distract and be annoying. I will try to ignore your nitpicking and irrelevant questions in the future.
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Dr. Ravitch,
If home schooling parents fail to provide a substantially equivalent education to the one given in a public school, the parents are violating state law.
I have not said a word about requiring students to take any test. My post and this thread was in response to the statement that “the state does not own their children”, pointing out that parents do not own their children either, and parental rights are limited by the state. Education is one of the areas where those rights are limited.
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Diane, I agree that parents should be able to opt their child out of a state assessment that serves no direct benefit for their child’s learning. However, you are suggesting a standard that would allow parents to pick and choose among course level assessments created by teachers. I felt my unit tests and the end course assessments our social studies team developed when I was a teacher were good assessments for the courses I taught, but if I was asked to demonstrate their “scientific validity” I would have been been hard pressed to demonstrate anything beyond face validity for our local assessments.
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Great, TE, so the state is going to start forcing private school kids to take the tests too, right?
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Dianne,
I am not making a prediction, just an observation that parental rights have limits when it comes to educating their children.
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“Any education a child receives must be “substantially equivalent””
Except if they drop out and the parents and state drop the ball and they get no education.
How many students don’t go to school in LA or other big cities that are school age?
The state is worried about claiming ownership over parents on tests, but not taking ownership of dropouts? That is a big failure on the part of the state.
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Stiles,
“I would have been been hard pressed to demonstrate anything beyond face validity for our local assessments.”
If by face validity you mean that the teacher made tests, quizzes, assignments, etc. . . were about the curriculum goals and objectives and were about helping the students to analyzed where they were in each of their learning process/progression, then “face validity makes sense.
When we start using numbers, grades, words/phrases such as proficient, etc. . . to sort, separate, rank or otherwise compare students whether to each other or to the curriculum then we start having serious issues with validity, and in fact there is no validity whatsoever as proven by Wilson.
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Duane, yes that is what I mean by face validity.
That is why I have reservations about saying parents should be able to opt out of any assessment on a basis of “scientific validity.” This is arbitrary and holding teacher created course assessments to this standard is problematic.
I have no qualms about parents being able to opt their child out of a standardized assessment that offers no benefit to their child’s learning. I don’t see how schools work if parents pick and choose what teacher created tests their children will take.
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Nobody owns children. Many adults, mainly the ones raising the children, but also the rest of our community/society, have a responsibility to the children to ensure that they grow up to be functioning members of our society and good citizens. Education requirements are in place for the good of society and to help children become independent adults.
Also, all states except MS and WV allow parents to opt their children out of vaccines using a religious beliefs loophole. Vaccines have scientific validity and have been proven to benefit the public. So even if excessive testing had scientific validity, it doesn’t mean parents should automatically have to comply with the “law”.
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And if the feds or any state attempts to limit the rights of parents, the backlash will be very loud and felt at the ballot box come election day.
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Peter and Paul (I like that combination.) Thank you for relating your wisdom.
Besides the voting booth, our only weapon against the asinine, costly, harmful tests is opting out.
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The opt out movement is the best chance to repudiate the Rheeformers. However, we must be alert to the danger of the “reformers” co-opting the opt out movement. You can be sure that the real power behind the reformers, the back room schemers with sharp eyes for dollar signs, are racking their brains trying to formulate a plan to do just that.
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Florida Teacher,
Opt Out cannot be controlled or manipulated because it is truly grassroots. No money, just passion, parents defending their kids.
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Consequences for parents are a grey blurred line at this point in NY State, but I have no doubt the government will try very hard to devise and enforce ways to punish parents through their taxes or other related finances not tied to the school, as in tax credits, tax refunds, college savings plans, etc. When that happens, it will be challenged in court no less and probably, parents will prevail because of jurisdictional and realms of authority issues.
However, the consequences for teachers is unlikely to change all that much; but being opened minded about NYSED, this remains to be seen. If it does not change or gets worse, parents’ only recourse at that point will be to continue to increase their voices about teacher evaluations being tied to test scores, the “magical” and altogether esoteric formulas used to calculate those APPR scores, the junk science behind test score usage, and how such utilization will always and inevitably influence how teachers teach and what children learn.
That’s not at all to say that teachers and educators should not be data oriented; they should always be studying the data to drive their instructions. That is critical. Teachers should know how to examine data sets and extract all sorts of extracted data that look at students from a variety of disaggregated lenses. This I find to be a need in many districts, and it’s serious.
But excellence in pedagogy does not equate to high test scores, as there are myriad factors that affect a child’s performance. Rather than crunch numbers on scores as a way to label a teacher, why not fund schools adequately, reduce class size, improve the educator to student ratio, and offer excellent services, such as Reading Recovery? Teachers would still be observed with those components in place anyway.
Ms. Elia claims it would be “unethical” to counsel parents to have their children opt-out of tests. One can make very cogent arguments on both sides of that fence, and I professionally would never counsel a parent to do so. Never. However, it would be wise and productive for Ms. Elia to speak openly and honestly about all the districts in NY State that have lower tax revenues and lower income populations, but that ended up receiving proportionately less state aid than wealthier districts, all because the foundation aid formula was not correctly, properly, and legally applied and was faulty to b being with.
I think that Ms. Elia’s silence on this very topic leans heavily with lead anvils in the direction of “unethical”. I respectfully beseech and challenge her to respond to this note.
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Robert,
“That’s not at all to say that teachers and educators should not be data oriented; they should always be studying the data to drive their instructions. That is critical. Teachers should know how to examine data sets and extract all sorts of extracted data that look at students from a variety of disaggregated lenses.”
Data, data, data, data
yada yada yada yada
Data is to yada
as yada is to data!
While some data, let’s say concerning assessable and countable input data about student/teacher ratios, dollars spent per pupil, number of special needs students, ELLs, SES status, etc. . . does have its place in assessing and evaluating school programs, the need for data at the teacher/student/classroom level is minimal unless by data one means anything observable/perceived at all. For the most part the “studying of data” as you suggest, usually in the form of disaggregating information concerning tests, quizzes and other assessments (usually evaluated using a rubric) is at best just a confirmation of what the teacher already knows and at worst a waste of the teachers’ time and effort and falls under the concept of “mental mathturbation” (thanks SDP).
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“Can’t be co-opted”
Co-opted it can’t be
Because it has no core
The Opt-out movement’s free
And shall be ever more
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Diane, technically that is not correct on state authority. The reason Obamacare had to be a “tax” instead of a “penalty” was because only states have police powers. They can literally force everyone to buy insurance under penalty of jail. The feds cannot do that. Thus, the states can force kids to take the test. I’m not saying the law requires that but states can.
As a matter of policy, states will never force kids to take a test because that would inspire a backlash. But given that kids will still prepare for the tests (just not take them on test day), there is almost no rationale for such behavior. Both sets of kids still get the same education. One would think you would want to shine a light on the results to show that the reforms don’t work based on data. I think it really undermines your case when you try to “hide the ball” rather than showing folks that ball is warped like you claim.
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Sorry, Virginia, you are wrong. No law in Néw York says that students must take the tests. Even the State Commissioner now says so. What do you propose to do? Jail 8-year-olds?
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“Jail 8-year olds” or even their parents.
Let’s not give the private-sector, for profit-prison industry any ideas. They are already spending millions on lobbyists to enact new laws with longer sentences. LOL
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Yeah,
The parent-to-prison pipeline. I see it coming.
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Great comment, Fred.
Family-to-prison pipeline?
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I vote for parent to prison pipeline due to its alliterative component!
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“The simple fact is that districts do not have the discipline to evaluate themselves. And it’s clearly established that observers from the same school (e.g. principal) consistently give higher ratings than 3rd-party observers. What evidence do you have that peer review will ever be implemented in an effective way? Anywhere? That’s called an excuse for not using VAMs when you throw out potential solutions you know will never be properly implemented.”
I do believe peer review is a much better system than VAM, even when it is not done well. That doesn’t mean I don’t want it done well, I do. It can get much better. It will take time and resources to get better at it, but the first step is actually trying it in more than one school or district. And, if “outsiders” need to be consulted as part of the program, so be it. But they must be made up mostly of experienced educators — not economists, philanthropists, hedge fund managers, and politicians.
Of course, this is not an “excuse for not using VAMs.” It is simply a better, more reasonable method. But we’ve already been through that.
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If one thinks the data is garbage, it would undermine their own argument to try to use it as if it were valid to disparage the deforms.
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Akademos so here’s the deal. I’ve shown how so few folks on here understand basic math and finance questions. But you seem to think your arguments are rational when they are not.
You say the “data is garbage”. For that to be true, it cannot be consistent. In other words, teachers cannot continue to get essentially the same score year after year if it’s totally random.
Next, folks on here say but teachers are not given the same kids and conditions so that’s the source of similar scores. I disagree that such patterns are biasing the results in a single school. But I don’t need to prove that. You see CFR proved that argument is nonsense because when teachers switch schools, their VAMs remain consistent. The VAMs remained the same (in sign and scale) as that predicted within schools. Unless there is some vast conspiracy theory and principals are all coordinating which teachers get which kids across 100’s of schools, that cannot happen.
It’s rather sad because so many folks simply don’t know what they don’t know. You make an argument that is tantamount to “global warming doesn’t exist” and nobody calls you on it within your movement. Beardsley and Hammond know better and subtly avoid these issues but it’s lost on most of you. You don’t understand what they are critiquing and thus make completely invalid comments on your own.
But who knows, maybe there are enough folks who will drink the Kool-aid. That’s been know to occur in US elections before.
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“In other words, teachers cannot continue to get essentially the same score year after year if it’s totally random.”
No one ever said the scores are random. What is true is that the scores correlate very tightly with socio-economic status. Therefore, using the scores to evaluate teachers is, in fact, garbage. Using household income as a means of calculating taxes is a valid use of data. Using household income to calculate student “achievement” is garbage.
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Obviously, I complete and utterly failed to teach this one. SES is not tied to growth scores. Not sure if Dienne will ever understand growth vs achievement. Maybe chetty can fix Dienne.
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“It’s rather sad because so many folks simply don’t know what they don’t know”
Yes, virginiasgp, that’s what I think when I see your posts that show a complete ignorance of teaching, learning, and justice.
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EdDetective,
Yes, you are right. Virginia means well, but he is like an engineer trying to design exact specifications for a ship and thinking that education should be like that ship.
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Virginiasgp,
Kindly reread my comment.
I was neither asserting nor suggesting the data is garbage. I was making an entirely different point having to do with arguments undermining each other, because you brought it up in your comment.
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Akademos, your statement in and of itself was rational. I understand that. The point I was making is that nobody can explain how the VAMs are consistent among teachers from year to year. When CFR analyzed data of “teacher switching” schools and found it to be exactly consistent with their within-school data, that sealed the deal. You simply have no explanation for how teachers keep their VAMs when they switch to a totally different environment. Please, give one plausible reason.
So my point is that when you call it “garbage” without any explanation, that’s irrational. It’s like the church telling Galileo his data was “garbage”. What’s their alternative that disproves Galileo? If you could explain how the data was garbage, I agree your statement would make sense.
Diane, while I really do learn lots of things from your blog (I’m much more optimistic after reading about gains on all fronts of the reform movement), I was well aware there is no possible way I can ever compare my kids’ teacher, school or district’s performance against anyone else without CC. And no, every parent I know is very interested in learning how our schools are performing relative to others. I spoke at my board of supervisors meeting and some nice ladies advocating a statute to commemorate the legacy of slavery and the Underground Railroad gave me smiles and big thumbs up. They are certainly quite interested. DanielKatz reveals the quality of personnel in many of our teaching schools. Hint: stay far away from Seton Hall!
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Akademos
What you said (and did not say) was crystal clear.
And NOMAD nitwitstanding, your statement was perfectly logical.
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SDP,
Kirk makes it seem so easy, though he appears slightly out of breath.
I write purely for the record. It’s a single sentence up there. And part of it is being taken out of its grammatically denotative context.
In more important news, good to see you on the board again.
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All of this information out there in the Information Age. So accessible and searchable, the more so the more you know. But you have to ask yourself about how reliable it is and how you know, how reliable your own analysis is, how profound your biases, passions and enthusiasms, how warping your subjectivity, gullibility, wishful thinking, magical thinking, how you really know, to what extent you can connect to actual experiences and truths, philosophical or mathematical or human. The Common Core and Coleman get something profound wrong. It’s not debate that makes a thinker, it’s dialectic. It’s not about rhetoric, it’s about real thought.
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Akademos,
Unfortunately, in the media age, those who are good at debating — and twisting words to suit their purposes, and even outright lying — have a distinct advantage.
Simple truths expressed clumsily stand little chance against highly polished lies.
It’s no accident that measurement science (along with some sophisticated mathematics) has been co-opted and misapplied by those pushing VAMs and other such teacher “evaluations”.
The primary purpose is to use what appears to be legitimate “science” (but is really crackpottery) to give a shine to a lie — to “overwhelm” and even “awe’ the uninitiated with what is actually pure BS.
And if that fails, it’s secondary purpose is to squelch questioning and dissent: “You simply do not understand what we are doing and therefore have no leg to stand on”.
It is actually very effective at intimidating most people into silence.
Silence through “science”, as it were — which is actually very ironic because real science is about doubt and questioning.
Having been educated as a scientist, I find the latter most disturbing of all.
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No need to be so kind as to call it sophisticated math.
The deeply embedded peaks so to say of analysis, topology, abstract algebra, set theory and logic are full of sophisticated and truly abstruse math.
VAM employs simple klunky math and simple clunky statistics, all invalidated in terms of what it is intended to be by the inaccuracy of the variables.
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To say nothing of the myriad plateaus and epiphanies of human development.
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(Diane, note I’m trying to compile them into fewer posts as you requested 🙂 )
Akademos, your statement in and of itself was rational. I understand that. The point I was making is that nobody can explain how the VAMs are consistent among teachers from year to year. When CFR analyzed data of “teacher switching” schools and found it to be exactly consistent with their within-school data, that sealed the deal. You simply have no explanation for how teachers keep their VAMs when they switch to a totally different environment. Please, give one plausible reason.
So my point is that when you call it “garbage” without any explanation, that’s irrational. It’s like the church telling Galileo his data was “garbage”. What’s their alternative that disproves Galileo? If you could explain how the data was garbage, I agree your statement would make sense.
Diane, while I really do learn lots of things from your blog (I’m much more optimistic after reading about gains on all fronts of the reform movement), I was well aware there is no possible way I can ever compare my kids’ teacher, school or district’s performance against anyone else without CC. And no, every parent I know is very interested in learning how our schools are performing relative to others. I spoke at my board of supervisors meeting and some nice ladies advocating a statute to commemorate the legacy of slavery and the Underground Railroad gave me smiles and big thumbs up. They are certainly quite interested. DanielKatz reveals the quality of personnel in many of our teaching schools. Hint: stay far away from Seton Hall!
SomeDAM Poet, I’m the only one on this board who ever admits they are wrong. And I am 100% right on this one. I thought you were hiding your head but apparently you are what I like to call aggressively ignorant.
1. Obama claimed it was not a “tax” to pass it. He called it a penalty. Folks know what “tax” means and he didn’t want the political fallout from that. In fact, had it been cast as a tax, it likely would have failed.
2. Then, his solicitor general began to argue both sides of it before the court. They said it was a penalty and they had the authority to implement it under the Commerce Clause. But he also said if the court rules the commerce clause doesn’t support a penalty, then the court must also consider the argument of a tax. This is ok legally, but politically, it shows Obama will say anything the public wants to hear.
3. The court ruled a “penalty” was unconstitutional under the commerce clause. Why? The Constitution only gives Congress express powers and expressly forbids any other powers under the 10th. A state can basically do whatever it wants as long as it doesn’t infringe on federal powers or the amendments (until the 1860’s, the amendments only applied to the feds and not the states. That’s why Connecticut collected dues for the church in the early days of the US!). A state can impose a “penalty” because it does have complete police powers. If the feds had “police power”, there is NO DEBATE on this issue.
4. Why is a “tax” ok? Because essentially, what congress did was charge everybody a tax and then refunded the tax for those that had insurance. This is similar to giving refunds for energy credits or child credits. A congress has the power to tax and offset those taxes with any credit. Lots of my friends disagreed with Roberts. Some members of the Court wanted to hold Congress to “penalty” since that’s how it was sold. I actually agree with Roberts (maybe the smartest man I’ve ever seen) because just because Congress and Obama lied their tails off, it’s still legal. It’s not illegal for politicians to lie.
But how about this, Diane has lots of friends. Let’s have her get a Constitutional professor and let that prof settle the debate. $200 to the winner (to charity of course). The sad part is you have no idea that you don’t know what you are talking about.
I realize Poet is a physics major. But many of the rest of you are humanities majors who are so much better at critical thinking than us STEM majors. But a STEM major just had to school, yes school, you on the Constitution and the law. Imagine that.
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virginiasgp said:
“Akademos, your statement in and of itself was rational. I understand that. The point I was making is that nobody can explain how the VAMs are consistent among teachers from year to year. When CFR analyzed data of “teacher switching” schools and found it to be exactly consistent with their within-school data, that sealed the deal. You simply have no explanation for how teachers keep their VAMs when they switch to a totally different environment. Please, give one plausible reason.
So my point is that when you call it “garbage” without any explanation, that’s irrational. It’s like the church telling Galileo his data was “garbage”. What’s their alternative that disproves Galileo? If you could explain how the data was garbage, I agree your statement would make sense.”
Here’s the problem virginiasgp, and it seems to be a pattern of yours. You are looking at one example, and claiming it to be the rule. Have you ignored all the other research that shows VAM swings when teachers are introduced to different environments, communities, and student populations? When teachers have a different group of students from year to year?
The “burden of proof” lies on VAM advocates to show that it is CONSISTENTLY rational and authentic. Advocates for VAM have failed to consistently support their claims — and its no surprise when we look at the ones who design, propose, and support things like VAM (non-educators). Despite your claim, there is much evidence in opposition to VAM showing that it is not consistent, accurate, or rational. And many of us wonder why you ignore all the rest of the evidence against VAM. You ignore most of its criticisms and its critics, and often brush off the critics as self-interested (ad hominem) rather than responding to the arguments themselves.
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Ed Detective, I’m sorry but you are mistaken. There is no research that shows that. Rothstein even replicated the CFR research using LA data. The CFR research has been replicated numerous times by multiple people within just a couple of years. That’s virtually unprecedented in social science research.
I think you may be confused with suggested policies that use VAM/SGP data incorrectly. For example, some critiques (in the Lederman case) noted unstable results when using only 15 sample scores. I have been very transparent in saying 15 scores is not enough to generate a valid VAM. Generally, 40+ scores and 2+ years is a good rule A single year gives you information on who might need assistance or closer review. Once you have more data you can start to make conclusions. But even then, more training and reviews are needed. If no improvement exists (some are just bad at teaching like some are bad at QB’ing an NFL team) then other actions must be taken.
You all are led astray by Amrein-Beardsley and Hammond. All of their statements are correct because they are knowledgeable and careful. But you folks get confused because you don’t read the caveats. For example, the affidavits in NY quoted instability when using just 15 scores. Nobody on my side recommends this. Not sure on NY’s actual policy but if it’s only 15, that needs to be increased. The national center for education statistics even performed a reliability study on theoretical data (shows possibility of errors). When using 3+ years of data, the chances that a teacher in the top 75% (not in bottom 25%) would be identified in the bottom 5% is very small (maybe 3-4%). The reason why I use the 5% and 25% cutoffs is that if you are trying to identify the bottom 25% of the teachers, you don’t set the cutoff at 25% or else you will get many errors. You provide a cushion or margin. Thus, if the teacher identifies as bottom 5%, it’s almost a certainty they are in the bottom 25%.
If you ask Amrein-Beardsley and Hammond my exact questions, they will acknowledge this. But then they will reframe the issue on their terms with policies we don’t advocate. There are some ignorant folks on the VAM side who implement questionable policies or proposals. But that is not the norm. And responsible reformers will speak out against those. Let’s be clear in what we propose.
TE states it very clearly: why don’t teachers want to be acknowledged for the long-term gains they provide? Certainly parents affect long-term gains and take credit. Shouldn’t teachers?
And on the SAT wars, I am excusing teachers from (1) not only any drop on SATs since it’s an aptitude test but (2) suggesting that teachers with lower aptitude/SAT students will naturally have lower growth from those students. But the VAMs accommodate SES (#2 in previous sentence) so VAM scores are unbiased. If VAMs are so wrong, how did Rafe have such a high score? If VAMs are completely random, how did Rafe end up way up the right side of the distribution tail?
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Virginia, enough with the Chetty worship. You have become a broken record.
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virginiasgp said:
“TE states it very clearly: why don’t teachers want to be acknowledged for the long-term gains they provide?”
Because a VAM score says nothing real about us, and is a misguided instrument of control. Because teachers dont want to be judged based on how their students do on shallow tasks that only intend to perpetuate the status quo of “knowledge,” and which are subjectively quantified and compared to students who are in different circumstances.
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TE speaks from higher education, where there are no VAM scores.
He should take off a year and spend it teaching in a K-12 school.
Three years would be even better, so he could get his own VAM score.
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Great idea, but I want to suggest that TE only teach in a k-12 public school (3rd grade to 12th) that has a childhood poverty rate of 70% or higher and that TE isn’t allowed to teach an AP or Honors class at that school that must be a traditional, transparent, democratic, non-profit public school that hasn’t been taken over by a mayor or governor.
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Lloyd,
Alas I am not qualified to teach in any public school, right? Not even AP Economics. Besides I am already 15,000 students deep in post secondary eduction, so perhaps it best that I keep teaching at that level.
I did send my children to an elementary school where about 60% of the students are on free or reduced price lunch. Do I get any credit for that?
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TE, you truly should consider teaching in a K-12 school for a semester or a year. More and more states are eliminating certification requirements. You would be quickly accepted. Given your interest in K-12, which you often express here, consider it.
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Dr. Ravitch,
My state has not relaxed those requirements. I suspect that I might be able to teach in a fancy private school though.
Would you recommend this to all your posters without K-12 teaching experience? What about your frequent posters without any teaching experience at all?
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TE,
You can teach in Oklahoma, which eliminated certification requirements.
You and a few others who are hyper-critical of teachers would benefit by the experience of teaching in a public school. It would reshape your perspective.
Most of my readers understand how hard it is to teach these days. You don’t.
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Dr. Ravitch,
Where in my comments have I been hypercritical of teachers?
If memory serves, the closest I have ever come to being critical at all was a satent that there are some great teachers and some terrible teachers with most of us in the middle. I was roundly criticized when I posted that for making unwarranted generalizations.
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TE,
I refuse to read all your past comments. You are as a rule a naysayer
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TE can also substitute teach. In some states, all a substitute needs is a high school equivalent GED without any college and they might be paid as much as $25 for the day. Some states do require a college education and pay more but subs often do not need a valid teaching credential. He can request sub jobs in classes where the childhood poverty rate is at least 70% or more—that he doesn’t want to work with AP and Honors kids. In fact, he can request teaching in schools where the poverty is really bad and there are known street gangs.
I was a full time substitute for two years before I landed my first full-time contract in a barrio middle school with a childhood poverty rate that must have been 80% and that school had a reputation as the most dangerous public school in Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley. The principal warned us to never walk off campus—only drive away. He said walking into the local community might mean we’d never be seen again. It was an extremely dangerous area. For instance, there was one block dominated by the Hell’s Angels, and their children were actually polite compared to some of the children who were 2nd or 3rd generation street gang members. Once, I worked with a kid who was a known ‘shooter’ with a price on his head from a rival gang. When he came into my 7th grade English classroom room at the age of 12, he’d already killed more rival gang bangers than the years he’d been alive. And he was nice. He never talked, never caused my any problems, but he never did any of the work to learn either and he often broke out in goofy laughter that no one else in the room got. Of course, no one else ever made fun of him either.
My first year of teaching was in an urban residency program where I was paid a small stipend for being in a 5th grade class full time for an entire school year with a master teacher to guide me. That elementary school was a few blocks from the middle school I mentioned in the second paragraph and it fed students to the middle school. From that middle school, I eventually transferred to teach in the high school that the middle school fed its students to. That’s where I got to witness drive by shootings from my classroom doorway as school let out.
And to think that the corporate education reformers want to judge teaches like me with a high stakes test based on the Common Core Crap, and then fire those teachers if their students don’t meet college and carrier readiness based on the results of those flawed and fraudulent tests designed to profit a company like Pearson.
TE, here’s some advice that I suggest you seriously consider before you come up with suggestions for teachers who work in schools like I did for thirty years—-walk in their shoes for at last one full school year and teach the same students they work with.
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I have advocated peer review for years on this blog, something like what is done in post secondary education. At my university the faculty vote on hiring, tenure , promotion, and any annual salary increase for each of their peers. That model has been rejected by the commentariat here.
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TE,
My book “Reign of Error” recommends peer review. You must be confused
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Dr, Ravitch
I know you are in favor of it, though it has been a couple of years I think since you have posted anything endorsing it.
The posters here, however, seem generally against it. If it is unprofessional to report poor teaching unless a student is in immediate physical harm, how can we expect professional teachers to take on the role of sharing the responsibility for everything that happens in their school?
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TE, you are wrong.
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Dr. Ravitch,
I don’t think I am wrong, but it would be easy to show that I am. Ask your followers if they would like to do the things that constitute faculty governance and peer review at post secondary schools. Among those duties would be
1) Having the faculty screen and interview all potential new hires to the faculty. The faculty would then vote on which candidate should be hired.
2) have the faculty determine who should be given tenure (or whatever you want to call it in K-12 education) and who should be terminated from among the new hires, after six years (or whatever time is suitable for K-12).
3) have the faculty vote on promotion.
4) have the faculty vote on any increase in salary for their peers.
As to my characterization of the comments on your blog, google site search is very helpful. Here is the direct quote from LG:
“One must be very careful in speaking up about one’s colleagues. It is unprofessional to do so unless there is evidence that the colleague’s actions are bringing immediate harm to students.”
I have to admit I remembered it with physical harm. My apologies. It remains, however, for me one of the most enlightening posts I have read on your blog.
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2012/08/15/is-this-a-failing-school-with-great-graduates/comment-page-1/#comment-24161
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Amongst knowledgeable educators and researchers, including many of us on this blog, peer review seems to be one of the most highly recommended practices for teacher “accountability.”
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Ed Dectective,
I certainly agree that Peer evaluation is a good way to go and have suggested many times in the past that the best way to argue against a new evaluation system that you do not like is to present a more effective alternative.
I have found that many who post here object to the idea of evaluating their peers. The responses have ranged from saying it is not their job to they are not trained in evaluating teachers (but somehow they do know how to evaluate themselves as teachers) to, most disturbing of all, that it is unprofessional for one teacher to report the poor teaching practices of another teacher unless there was danger of immediate physical harm to the student. I do not see how peer evaluation could work if these attitudes are typical in the teaching profession.
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Ed Detective/Diane, none of us oppose peer review. In fact, if peer review were being used effectively, there would not be a need to use VAMs in evaluations. But even those highly cited districts that supposedly use peer review (Montgomery County) have < 1% of their teachers being rated unsatisfactorily. Nobody, and I do mean nobody, believes those numbers. Even teachers on here have noted they observe teachers who should “find another job”.
The simple fact is that districts do not have the discipline to evaluate themselves. And it’s clearly established that observers from the same school (e.g. principal) consistently give higher ratings than 3rd-party observers. What evidence do you have that peer review will ever be implemented in an effective way? Anywhere? That’s called an excuse for not using VAMs when you throw out potential solutions you know will never be properly implemented.
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How do you force kids to take a test?
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Nobody is going to force kids to take a test. But kids are “forced” to attend school and can be forcibly removed from homes so don’t kid yourself on what can be done. Nobody and I mean nobody has recommended “forcing” kids to take tests.
But we all know parents drive kids’ opinions. Kids become religious because of their parents. They stay religious because of their own volition when they reach adulthood. You all know the parents are the ones driving this. If you put pressure on kids to take the test in school, they WiLL take it. You never need to physically force them to take it. Kids are not activists. That’s just nonsense but I guess you think it makes a good punchline.
I assume you believe kids are the ones who are resisting vaccines too, eh? I’m not equating vaccines with opt-outs for this argument, but the behavior of the kids vs parents in each case is exactly the same. It’s the parents, stupid.
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You make the test a prerequisite for promotion from any grade in which the tests are given. That’s the only way I can imagine that states could “force” all students to take the tests. I don’t see that happening at this stage of the game. Nor will states start levying fines on parents whose children don’t take the tests, as someone above believes is certain to happen.
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Brien wrote:
” Kids are not activists.”
I’ve seen plenty of “activist” kids who go against what their parents, teachers and preachers tell them. I was one of them. Unless you ask I won’t bore you with the details. If I assume that you didn’t grow up in the sixties (k-8) then perhaps you didn’t see “activist” children, but we were there “doing our thing”, protesting overarching authority as we could, breaking out of socially approved norms and expectations to challenge the idiocies at all levels that we saw around us.
And kids still are “activists”. What about those students who occupied the superintendents office in NJ? Were they just puppets on strings maneuvered by their parents? I doubt it! (oh, I know it was the big bad union mofos who controlled those strings).
“If you put pressure on kids to take the test in school, they WiLL take it. You never need to physically force them to take it.”
YEP, just like many weren’t “physically forced” to walk into the gas chambers, the “pressure” on them was enough to do so!
Oh no, oh no, my oh my, he just invoked Godwin! What shall we do?
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Diane, away from email today so I just noticed this one.
Duane “there are no valid measurements of anything, anywhere, in fact did we really travel to the moon” Swacker just compared asking kids to take a standardized test to the Nazis slaughtering kids in gas chambers. While I defended his right to say it, I have to ask Duane if he is out of his fricking mind?
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Take out the “if” of If I assume. . .
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Adding to Duane’s comment about kid activism:
And even when kids are not activists, we should teach them to be. In other words: to become informed, to make good decisions, and then to stand up for what is right.
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In NC, third grade students have to pass the ELA test in order to be promoted to fourth grade. They also have all children create a reading portfolio that consists of mini-tests (same format. types of questions), but these are only used if a child fails the End of Year test, but passed the portfolio requirements.
They can also be promoted if they pass the beginning of grade test (It is used to measure growth after taking the end of year test). So at least for 3rd grade in NC, the test is required.
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“…only states have police powers. They can literally force everyone to buy insurance under penalty of jail. The feds cannot do that.”
Are you kidding me? Gosh how you make me laugh with your ignorance! Especially since you think you know it all. Are you telling me the feds don’t have police powers? That would be one hell of a surprise to all the people currently in federal prison.
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Dienne, yes the feds have some but most are reserved to the State. Feds can always use civil rights, etc. But you do realize the states can pass regulations and jail you for doing so. The feds could never have criminal penalties for not buying health insurance. Same is not true with the states. Read more. Watch the news. Read the rulings. I have confidence in you too.
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Virginia, you just hit (or passed) your limit of 4 comments. Do you have a day job?
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So we’ve gone from “the feds don’t have police powers” to “the feds have some police powers”. Just want to point out what you just did there.
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Brian claims “The reason Obamacare had to be a “tax” instead of a “penalty” was because only states have police powers.”
His ignorance is showing (yet again). 🙂
The actual reason had to do with the question of the Constitutionality of calling it a penalty (under aegis of Commerce Clause) vs a tax.
“In its ruling, the court held that the law could not be upheld under the Commerce Clause, which was the government’s primary argument in its support. “The Federal Government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance,” Roberts wrote for the majority.
But wait—doesn’t that mean the law should’ve been struck down?
The Commerce Clause argument was only one of three the government made in support of the law. It also argued that the law could be considered a tax, and this is the argument the court bought.
“Specifically, the court held that the individual mandate is not a “penalty,” as the health-care law identified it, but a tax, and therefore a constitutional application of Congress’s taxation power.”
From Explaining the Supreme Court Ruling on Obamacare
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SomeDAM Poet, what exactly do you think I said? The feds can’t put you in jail for not buying insurance. The states CAN. The feds used their taxing power to impose taxes even though it was called a penalty in the law. You just reiterated my position.
That commerce clause btw was never intended to be used to control intra-state trade. Then, along came a socialist named Franklin Delano Roosevelt and usurped so many rights from the people it would make your head spin. $100 says 90% of the people don’t know that ruling exists and would vehemently disagree that the feds could prevent you from growing crops on your own land to use for yourself.
As to my “ignorance”, what exactly do all of you know about police powers. Btw, I never claimed to know much. I just understand that so many of you know so much less than I do.
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Virginia, your knowledge is totally awesome about everything except education. You have never taught and you know zip about how to teach and how to evaluate teachers. But other than that, you are super smart.
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Diane, how many times do I have to say that I have never claimed to be smart.
Btw, I think I taught all of your readers how to comprehend, in an intuitive way, those 5 eighth grade CC math questions the other day. And I did that without any chalkboard or pictures. I’d say that’s a little impressive.
I must admit I have a very “challenging” group of pupils in teaching the difference between “growth” and “achievement” scores. I must have explained it very clearly umpteen times but yet some still don’t follow. So obviously, I still have work to do to improve my teaching craft. Maybe I’ll go observe Chetty and see how it’s really done!
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Brian
If you can’t even acknowledge that you were wrong– that “The reason Obamacare had to be a “tax” instead of a “penalty” was NOT “because only states have police powers” but because of the issue of Constitutionality of categorizing it as a tax rather than as a penalty — there is no hope for you.
But If you want to debate, do it with Chief Justice Roberts.
I have don’t have the stomach for any more of your bullshit.
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SomeDAM Poet, I’m the only one on this board who ever admits they are wrong. And I am 100% right on this one. I thought you were hiding your head but apparently you are what I like to call aggressively ignorant.
1. Obama claimed it was not a “tax” to pass it. He called it a penalty. Folks know what “tax” means and he didn’t want the political fallout from that. In fact, had it been cast as a tax, it likely would have failed.
2. Then, his solicitor general began to argue both sides of it before the court. They said it was a penalty and they had the authority to implement it under the Commerce Clause. But he also said if the court rules the commerce clause doesn’t support a penalty, then the court must also consider the argument of a tax. This is ok legally, but politically, it shows Obama will say anything the public wants to hear.
3. The court ruled a “penalty” was unconstitutional under the commerce clause. Why? The Constitution only gives Congress express powers and expressly forbids any other powers under the 10th. A state can basically do whatever it wants as long as it doesn’t infringe on federal powers or the amendments (until the 1860’s, the amendments only applied to the feds and not the states. That’s why Connecticut collected dues for the church in the early days of the US!). A state can impose a “penalty” because it does have complete police powers. If the feds had “police power”, there is NO DEBATE on this issue.
4. Why is a “tax” ok? Because essentially, what congress did was charge everybody a tax and then refunded the tax for those that had insurance. This is similar to giving refunds for energy credits or child credits. A congress has the power to tax and offset those taxes with any credit. Lots of my friends disagreed with Roberts. Some members of the Court wanted to hold Congress to “penalty” since that’s how it was sold. I actually agree with Roberts (maybe the smartest man I’ve ever seen) because just because Congress and Obama lied their tails off, it’s still legal. It’s not illegal for politicians to lie.
But how about this, Diane has lots of friends. Let’s have her get a Constitutional professor and let that prof settle the debate. $200 to the winner (to charity of course). The sad part is you have no idea that you don’t know what you are talking about.
I realize Poet is a physics major. But many of the rest of you are humanities majors who are so much better at critical thinking than us STEM majors. But a STEM major just had to school, yes school, you on the Constitution and the law. Imagine that.
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Virginiasgp,
“Diane, how many times do I have to say that I have never claimed to be smart.”
I am going to make the SAME claim as you for once:
Virginiasgp, you are right; you are NOT smart.
When you’re right, you’re right.
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I agree. The reason I don’t opt out is because my child spent way more time preparing for the test than actually taking them.
However, some parents opted out because they did not agree with how the data was being used, in their judgement, to unfairly evaluate schools – not because they disagreed with what was being taught or the fact that their children are being tested.
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I think it’s sad that some parents don’t realize that they have many basic rights where their children are concerned.
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Agree.
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What about requiring ELLs to take the test after a year? This is so damaging to these young people. How do we justify this nonsense? I think that we need to help Washington understand the impact of these actions/requirements on our students. The ELL Community needs to find their voice
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Yes! Thank you for speaking out on behalf of ELLs.
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As a CA public school teacher can I advise a parent of a special ed student to opt out?
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I don’t know about CA but here in NY they would try to limit you rights as a teacher. My stock response on Opt Out is: “As a teacher I am supposed to encourage you to have your child take the test. As a parent I would never encourage you to have your child take the test.”
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In Utah, our licenses have been threatened if we even mention opting out. Check with your state, but you very possibly cannot tell that parent anything about opting out, let alone advise them.
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This is something I think the pro-public education forces (NPE, maybe?) should take on. Let’s find a few teachers near retirement or who have alternate sources of income and have those teachers speak out openly on Opt Out. Let’s establish a legal fund to take it to court if/when such teachers are disciplined/fired/have their license revoked for doing so. This is such a blatant First Amendment violation that I can’t believe it would make it through the courts.
I would happily be the first to chip in to such a fund.
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That doesn’t mean that grandparents, neighbors, retirees, doctors, lawyers can’t tell them. Any time I see grandparents or parents with children I start a conversation and inform them of the problems prevailing in school and parents’ options. It takes a community to raise a child that includes using all our resources to protect them.
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It seems crazy that this point even has to be made. Why is this fact not Crystal clear at first glance? Thank you Peter Greene for understanding American truth.
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To virginiasgp/Brian:
There is NO WORD that can explain to you in order to open your mind about parental rights in education.
America is still a democratic society, and Americans still live under capitalism.
Money can buy slavery, BUT not spirit, true mindset about freedom.
All NEW immigrants’ children might be easily bullied by GREEDY and MANIPULATIVE business corporate. I am sorry that virginiasgp/Brian, yes, you must be NEW immigrant, or a slave for money.
Just remind you that dictatorial communism still surrenders to its citizens regarding national economy. People prefer to die than to work without future.
In the same vein, educated American parents will fight all their might to protect their children’s TRANSPARENT, VALID, and AGE APPROPRIATE education.
virginiasgp/ Brian, you do not deserve to live in a democratic society. Most of all, your expression is as much as INVALID as today testing scheme. Back2basic
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“If parents want to talk about changing the standard curriculum, if teachers want to talk about how the state will use test results in their evaluations, those discussions will be welcome.”
Complete nonsense. They were either ignored or ridiculed by both federal and state lawmakers prior to their opting out.
Ed reform still isn’t addressing the substance of their complaints. The entire ed reform analysis on NY opt-outers was demographic- the only thing they were interested in was which groups of parents and/or districts were refusing the tests. Any “analysis” of opt out ended there- first it was “wealthy suburbs” and when that turned out not to be true they determined it was “low performing” middle income students. They didn’t even use the data they have collected on opt outs in any useful or productive or positive way. They immediately labeled the groups and then tried to use data to demean and dismiss them, which is amusing, since that’s exactly what the parents are complaining about- that they misuse data.
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“Data Driven”
The data are driven
Along for the ride
And never are given
A chance to decide
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The parents say “you’ll use this data to put people in boxes, ignore what they say and experience and judge them” and then ed reformers use the opt out data in NY to put people in boxes, ignore what they say and experience and judge them 🙂
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Malvina Reynolds and Pete Seeger said it best
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there’s doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.
And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
(“Little Boxes” by Malvina Reynolds and made famous by Pete Seeger)
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Duncan’s response to opt out is actually a really good example of the ed reform “movement’s” response to opt out:
“U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told a group of state schools superintendents Friday that he found it “fascinating” that some of the opposition to the Common Core State Standards has come from “white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.”
Demographics, motive. He determines who he thinks they are as a group and from that he determines why they’re opting out, which allows him to completely dismiss their substantive complaints. That’s the only analysis they’ve done on opt out, which is pretty amazing coming from people who insist they use objective data in positive ways to help people and inform good policy.
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If the school itself requires the tests to graduate they have to take them or they wont graduate. ..This is the paperwork I was sent in the mail yesterday because I opted my daughter out of all tests…this is my understanding. ..let me know if I’m wrong. .thanks!
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“Opt-out Power”
The greatest human power
Is power to withhold
It makes the titans cower
A wonder to behold
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Yeah, they’re starting to run for cover. Piss off enough voters, and not only can they end their public service, they can become irrelevant to all of their slimy-rich and ruthless friends.
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Yeah, they’re starting to run for cover. Anger enough voters, and not only can they end their public service, they can become irrelevant to all of their slimy-rich and ruthless friends.
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“Driven to Drink by Opt-out”
As tidal wave hits Cuomo’s shore
He isn’t laughing any more
The water threatens all around
,So Andrew looks for higher ground
His gubernatorial suit is wet
And curly do gets curlier yet
But higher ground is not in reach
So Andrew flounders on the beach
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
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Here’s a pro-Common Core testing opinion piece you may see in your state (your state HERE) because that’s how they use them- this one is Missouri but it doesn’t matter- it could be anywhere they put the Common Core testing in.
This is the language they use on these test scores:
“The Common Core should help to boost college readiness — and college completion — by significantly raising expectations, starting in kindergarten. But we shouldn’t be surprised that Missouri found that less than 40 percent of its middle school students are on track for college. In fact, that’s what we should expect. Show-Me State parents, in other words, are finally learning the truth.”
The Truth. From this one test. So what part of what the opt out parents are saying isn’t correct? They DO use these scores as wholly determining The Truth about students. That’s actually a selling point. They assure us the stats can’t be juked and parents now have the truth on College and Career readiness. If that’s the position on standardized testing that’s fine but this whole narrative about “nuanced measures” and “context” is just nonsense. These schools, teachers and kids will be measured using these test scores, and nothing else. They’re already doing it. Not one thing has changed about how they use data, they just (now) claim they have better data.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/missouri-don-t-shoot-the-messenger/article_21fb17e0-8904-5940-b1d6-4d732b53f853.html
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In NC it is difficult to opt out. The state requires students pass three high school tests are needed for graduation (Math 1, English 2 and Biology). The other tests count a percentage of the final grades (I believe it is 20% but some districts have it higher). The third grade reading test is required for promotion to fourth. If the student wants to be in gifted or advanced classes, often the end of year tests is how placement is determined , especially in elementary and middle school. So the state cannot require the tests, but they can have ways to punish the students if they do not take it. This is why efforts to have a massive opt out movement in NC have not really come to pass. The state rules put in place by our State Department of Education prevent high school students from graduating or having good enough grades for post-secondary if they opt-out.
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“Parents have the right to refuse. The state does not own their children. ”
Parents also have a right to refuse to take advantage of a $15,000-per-year benefit that the state is giving them. But if they do take advantage of that benefit, it is perfectly reasonable for the state to require the beneficiaries to take a yearly test, so that the state can judge whether it is providing the benefit in the best possible way.
Enough with the “parental rights” silliness over people who are trying to have their cake and eat it too — i.e., take $15,000 from the state and then act all huffy that the state wants to know what happened to the money.
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WT,
What benefit from the state are you talking about? There are none. The state is not the one providing the money for any programs in the state. The state in a democracy acts as the middle man for the people. The money comes from the people through sales tax, property tax and state income tax.
The state gives the people nothing!
That money comes from the people through taxes that the state collects from the people, and the elected representatives are trusted to spend that money from the people wisely in the interests of the people—-not to profit a company like UK’s Pearson or support the agenda of a few billionaire or a company based in the UK called Pearson.
The state gives the people nothing!
In fact, many of the billionaires who support the Common Core Crap, Vouchers, Charter schools and high stakes testing to rank and fire teachers and close public schools only live in one state but are using their wealth and influence to manipulate what is going on in other states where they pay no taxes.
The state gives the people nothing!
In California, for instance almost all the money that funds public education comes from property taxes on property owned by the people who live in the state. The states are not allowed to print their own currency and they are mandated to balance their budges—-unlike the federal government.
The state gives the people nothing!
And if the voters in a state do not like what the state is doing with their money, then they have the ballot box to change who runs the state and to put elected representatives in charge to do what the majority of the people in a state approve of. It often takes time to achieve that change but U.S. history shows us that it does happen when the majority of people stop being fooled by the liars—-for instance the education Rheeformer Deformers—who are attempting to manipulate them.
The state gives the people nothing!
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Well if that’s the way you want to view it, it isn’t the “state” imposing tests — the PEOPLE are imposing tests upon themselves. So what’s the complaint?
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WT
When did the people, who pay the taxes, ever vote on high stakes testing? Instead, the people who vote elected charlatans and liars to public office who were supported with huge campaign contributions from the oligarchs behind the RheeForm movement.
There was never a vote by the people or the state legislatures for the Common Core Crap (CCC) agenda—-the era of high stakes testing that ranks and fires public teachers and closes public schools was never put to the vote. The CCC was agreed on by one or two people in each state that signed before there was even a CCC.
The Common Core State Standards originated with the National Governors Association
and the Council of Chief State School Officers.
Why did the RheeFormers skip the democratic process that would have included the voters and the state legislatures—to educate the voters and legislatures and let them debate its merits if there were any?
Why was the CCSS kept so secret from the people and created in secret before there was even a CCSS?
Why did the CCSS require the few educators they invited to have a look require those educators to sign coordinately agreements and the few who didn’t were not allowed in?
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The “people” aren’t the ones imposing the tests – the people are the ones opting out. Why is that hard for you to comprehend?
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Um, no, the people in general are imposing the tests, while a few objectors want to keep the public benefit while opting out of the few conditions that were democratically enacted. It reminds me of a liquor store that wants to opt into getting a huge tax break but opt out of having any safety or regulatory inspections.
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What fantasy world are you fro? There was no democratic, transparent process involved in the development of the Common Core Crap, and the people were deliberately unaware of the process as long as possible.
The Common Core Crap was hatched by David Coleman and Jason Zimba and then David Coleman recruited Bill Gates to support the Common Core Crap agenda. The people were never included in those decisions and they were never democratic.
In addition, Pearson knew what was coming because that UK corporation acquired the education division of HarperCollins in 1996 from News Corporation and Simon & Schuster in 1998 from Viacom and merged it with its own education unit, Addison-Wesley Longman to form Pearson Education. In September 2000, Pearson acquired National Computer Systems (NCS) and entered the educational assessment and school management systems market in the United States.
By the time the legislation for NCLB was signed into law by G. W. Bush, it was 2001, and Pearson was ready for what they knew was coming, what they had lobbies for—-and there was no inclement by by the people, voters or state legislatures.
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That’s not what the state is doing. The state is operating above accountability and with disregard to evidence, research and sense of all kinds. And this is about much more than that. It is about inappropriate ranking, a grab at some form of meritocracy that is much more about racism, classism and elitism.
We as a society were supposed to have evolved beyond this long ago.
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The choice before us is clear, and it is a moral choice. It is the choice between tyranny and freedom, dictatorship and autonomy, peaceful slavery and dangerous freedom, and manufactured pipedreams of what America used to be versus the gritty reality of what she is today.
Most of all, perhaps, the choice before us is that of being a child or a parent, of obeying blindly, never questioning, and marching in lockstep with the police state or growing up, challenging injustice, standing up to tyranny, and owning up to our responsibilities as citizens, no matter how painful, risky or uncomfortable.
As author Erich Fromm warned in his book Civil Disobedience, “At this point in history, the capacity to doubt, to criticize and to disobey may be all that stands between a future for mankind and the end of civilization.”
WC
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“The choice before us is clear, and it is a moral choice. It is the choice between tyranny and freedom, dictatorship and autonomy, peaceful slavery and dangerous freedom, and manufactured pipedreams of what America used to be versus the gritty reality of what she is today.”
If I choose freedom over tyranny, do I also have to choose “dangerous freedom” over peaceful slavery? Because a combination of freedom and peaceful slavery might work best for me.
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You can keep your slavery, and I’ll keep my freedom.
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The opinion above comes from an article on the Rutherford Institute’s Website. I found it a propros….
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OH BOY, I am sorry . I like this quote and sentiment, abut I hastily recopied it from a friend’s email to me before I learned fully investigated or understood Rutherford Institute’s perspective and mission. I find it ironic that I am such agreement with this sentiment , yet my politics and point of view are much more moderate.
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To FLERP:
I hope that all readers in this website are educated and cultivated in global history, such as WWI, WWII, Vietnamese War, Korean War, Chinese versus Tibet and Hong Kong, …
FLERP, please elaborate your expression of how does your choice work best for people in general, and for you particularly.
[start quote}
If I choose freedom over tyranny, do I also have to choose “dangerous freedom” over peaceful slavery? Because a combination of freedom and peaceful slavery might work best for me.
[end quote]
Millions of people have died because of their own gullibility, and bind trust in corrupted leaders. Most of all, lack of cultivation in humanity in education has created corrupted partnership between governance and business leaders.
Yes, there are many leaders who prefer to have one CATARACT eye and to lead all blind. As a result, they will all die in fear, frustration, and terminal illness.
However, there are also SOME INTELLIGENT CITIZENS who prefer to have both SHARP eyes and to live peacefully conscientious beings who find their lives that are worth and meaningful to live for.
Thank you in advance for your wisdom if you find time to advise me. Back2basic
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In an imperfect world some of the most dangerous people are those who claim or believe that one way or another it is perfect.
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As a NY parent of an opt-out last spring I have already received (in fine print) a notice at the bottom of a welcome back letter that informed us that my student would not be eligible for “advanced programs” such as Odyssey of the Mind if she opted out. Now I am really angry.
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I didn’t jump in fast enough. This is a reply to Vfiginiasgp statement: “… Diane, while I really do learn lots of things from your blog (I’m much more optimistic after reading about gains on all fronts of the reform movement), I was well aware there is no possible way I can ever compare my kids’ teacher, school or district’s performance against anyone else without CC. And no, every parent I know is very interested in learning how our schools are performing relative to others. I spoke at my board of supervisors meeting and some nice ladies advocating a statute to commemorate the legacy of slavery and the Underground Railroad gave me smiles and big thumbs up. They are certainly quite interested. DanielKatz reveals the quality of personnel in many of our teaching schools. Hint: stay far away from Seton Hall!”
Vfiginiasgp, apparently you have no background in Child psychology to understand how a child learns and the harm caused by standards that are not age appropriate and by the aligned high stakes testing. You apparently have no background in philosophy education, methodology, and learning theories. You sound like another David Coleman shooting from the hip.
Your comment about CC helping you compare teachers, schools, or districts – that is ludicrous. Every CC school and district have the same curriculum. What are you going to compare? You certainly can surmise if your child is progressing but being human your child is not going to progress at the same rate as others. Every teacher has his/her own unique talent to develop concepts but CC doesn’t allow for individuality. Every child has his/her own unique talents and abilities but CC doesn’t acknowledge those gifts/talents. Just because one grandson could read third grade material in kindergarten and the other doesn’t want to read in K is no reflection on the school, teacher, or district.
Furthermore, how are you going to compare schools when the tool you are using is invalid- flawed? We know even the administration has felt compiled to cheat to protect their students against abusiveness. And not all students can remain strong when confronted with a tool that is not age appropriate. CC furthermore, is destroying our children by forcing them to one way of thinking. A good educator contextualizes all new concepts but CC gives directives contrary to that sound principal. Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!
And your comment “stay away from Seton Hall!” Ugh! To cast a shadow on a university from which many of my friends including my husband received a good education, doesn’t set well with me. Seton Hall took students into the inner city of Newark to get part of their practicum. Seton Hall gave a friend a background to teach in China after he did several tours of duty in the Peace Corp. You can’t judge an institution by a few people. You might have had a personality conflict with someone there but it is not fair to criticize the whole institution.
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TE said, “At my university the faculty vote on hiring, tenure , promotion, and any annual salary increase for each of their peers. That model has been rejected by the commentariat here … The posters here, however, seem generally against it. If it is unprofessional to report poor teaching unless a student is in immediate physical harm, how can we expect professional teachers to take on the role of sharing the responsibility for everything that happens in their school?”
I must have missed whatever TE read here, because I don’t think posters on this site are against whatever TE thinks they are against when it comes to hiring and firing teachers and using some form of peer review.
In fact, I think if there is any consensus here, it has to do with how wrong it is to use the results of standardized tests to rank and fire teachers and then close public schools based on an arbitrary cut off score for those tests that is designed to fail 70% of the students.
For instance, even the Vergara decision in Los Angeles that ruled against due process rights as they are guaranteed by the Bill of Rights for public sector workers that includes public school teachers, the witnesses for the prosecution clearly communicated that they were only guessing that 1 to 3% of public school teacher’s were incompetent based on their years of classroom observations. In addition the results of using high stakes standardized tests to judge teachers competent in several states have clearly supported the fact that more than 98% of all public school teachers are competent.
Therefore, why does TE think it is so important that public school teachers be involved in the inquisition to judge their fellow teachers just because this is what’s done at the university where I think TE teaches?
History has already revealed what happened during the Catholic inquisitions in Europe several centuries ago. It doesn’t work to turn citizens against each other, and that is exactly what the Common Core Crap was designed to do.
But, by all means, if the US Congress can vote themselves raises, I’m all for public school teachers voting in their own raises without negotiation or public debate.
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