State Superintendent MaryEllen Elia said Néw York would stick with Common Core, no matter that public opinion does not support it.
A Siena College poll found that 64% of Néw York voters either oppose Common Core or thinks it has made no difference.
She also said, ““The United States used to lead the world educationally, but we’ve fallen to the middle of the pack. Our students are lagging behind, and the global economy is growing more competitive every day.”
Actually, that’s not true. The U.S. never led the world on test scores. When the first international tests were given in the 1960s, the U.S. students came in last. Yet over the next 50 years, our nation surpassed the other 11 nations that took the same test by every measure: economic productivity, technological innovation, military might, creativity, and democratic institutions. The test scores of 15-year-olds do not predict our future. The policies of our government, the decisions of corporations to outsource jobs, our treatment of our children and communities matter more.
When I met Commissioner Ekia, I have her a copy of “Reign of Error,” which explains this in greater detail. Obviously she hasn’t had time to read it.
Given the debacle of the Gates teacher evaluation in Hillsborough County, where Elia was superintendent until January, she should rethink her views.
“The United States used to lead the world educationally, but we’ve fallen to the middle of the pack.”
Somebody needs to read REIGN OF ERROR!
“The United States used to lead the world educationally, but we’ve fallen to the middle of the pack.”
And if you look at the quality of our elected and public officials, you’ll see we’ve fallen into the gutter.
Sound like the captain of the Titanic being to they were going to hit an iceberg and then doing it anyway….
She’s a good superintendent — she stays bought.
Although apparently it is not always clear who has bought her if you can believe the reports that she drove Hillsborough into financial difficulty without their knowledge.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
The very wise Emerson.
She is a hired gun (250 K a yr.) and thus will follow whatever instructions Andy tells her with no regard for students or common sense. She sold out and has no soul.
“Elia has partly attributed the rapidly growing testing opt-out movement to a lack of publicly available information on the Common Core. In her effort to reduce the number of students refusing to take the state standardized tests, she has said that parents and the public need to become more involved in the process, because many don’t know what the Common Core is.”
Still no recognition from the ed reform “movement” that excluding the public from decisions made about their local schools was probably unwise, an over-reach and incredibly arrogant. What’s it called when people take responsibility for “results”? Oh, yeah- accountability.
The United States is about where it should be based on the poverty levels of the country. Elia either does not understand reality or chooses to ignore it, just like she is choosing to ignore opinion of New York citizens. If improvement in test scores is the main goal in Albany, then Cuomo should raise the minimum wage and try to attract good paying jobs to the state since the scores correlate to the socioeconomic level of the family. He should stop playing the blame game.
Cuomo was running ads in Ohio where he promised more goodies for companies than Ohio is offering, and Ohio is offering all kinds of tax incentives and give-aways. Ohio has an amazingly deceptive program where they take state taxes out of wages- on the paycheck- and then those state taxes go not to the state but back to the employer. It’s blatantly deceptive. Your paycheck says ” to the state of Ohio” and the money is actually going to your employer.
“An estimated 2,700 companies now take advantage of this welfare system, fueling an economic war between states that costs employees an estimated $700 million a year in diverted tax income, the report concludes. Those who profit include corporate giants like Sears, Goldman Sachs, and General Electric.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/0517/Your-employer-may-be-pocketing-your-state-income-tax
Ah yes, ain’t the Free Market grand?
The free market is full of freebies for corporations. By reducing the amount of state taxes, they are reducing what they can actually accomplish. Maybe this is part of the appeal of charters? They want to reduce the state’s pension and healthcare obligations.
Perhaps she’s trying to add fuel to the NY opt out movement? I can think of no other explanation for her behavior. I am a Massachusetts parent but have been following what’s happening in NY hoping that we follow suit.
Perhaps, NY parents can flood her with their questions about the common core standards.
Would it really matter if she read “Reign of Error” or not. Don’t confuse me with facts, my mind is already made up seems to be the thought processes of these people.
What happened to the Democratic process?
Diane, you’re too kind in assuming Elia hasn’t had the time to read “Reign of Error.”
It’s far more likely she hasn’t read it because she’s being well paid to ignore its message; the minute she pays attention to that message, she’s out as Tisch/Cuomo’s Education Commissioner.
Reblogged this on stopcommoncorenys and commented:
She must go!!!
Well, to be fair, perhaps she was not talking about test scores.
Maybe she was talking about “Number of Reader’s Digests in the bathroom” or some other measure of educational achievement.
“Horse d’oeuvres?”
Stay the course
The cliff’s in sight
Calm the horse
Cuz bolt he might
I highly doubt she has read Common Core nor understands the content. But simple minds need simple ways. Blind acceptance of standards means someone else is doing the thinking. Tests are a single score to avoid considering underlying complexity. If anything is going to sink the U.S. in the world, it is the religious adherence to crumbling “free market” ideas that are clearly neither free nor markets, and the obsession with flawed accountability measures devoid of reality. Yet, these Reformers trudge on. Now they are just tilting at windmills, but with less nobility than Quixote.
Perhaps the love affair with the free market is a product of the economic hysteria from the global economy. Companies are scrambling around trying to find the next big thing like the internet. They believe innovation will come from entrepreneurs so they throw money at them. Instead, they usually come up with some inane niche product. Try watching “Shark Tank,” and you’ll see what I mean.
Good point. I believe there are great businesses that see their mission as more than making a buck even if it kills people. But look at the recent examples of vulture drug companies raising prices, car companies cheating on emissions or covering up deadly flaws, and others knowingly distributing, deadly, tainted food. Free markets need adult supervision if nothing else than to give honest businesses a fighting chance.
Interestingly, the internet was a Big Gubbermint invention.
Refusing to change your mind in the face of damning evidence – what do you call that? She’s repeating tired media tripe talking points that are 30 years out of date.
We cannot go backwards? Makes it sound like there’s a particular trajectory we are on that has a starting point and an ending point – so if we know that the Common Core it forward, why don’t we just skip over to the inevitable conclusion? That isn’t “students achieve” by the way. And I don’t know this golden age in America where we were on top educationally and fell to the bottom – as mentioned and researched by Diane, tests were never our strong point.
Oh wait, they need time. We’ve had Common Core for what – 7 years? Prior to the Common Core, did we do ANYTHING for more than 1 year at a time? Common Core has staying power because it has money behind it – certainly not because it is inherently educationally sound (you get that designation AFTER you prove it works).
An open mind would acknowledge the things we don’t know about standards like these, do they make a difference at all, and what is the result of asking too much of some students in the effort to challenge all, and can the bar be too high?
Why do we even bother trying to convince her – when she’s convinced the reason parents hate the tests is they don’t know enough, reeks of a certain arrogance, the notion that parents wouldn’t research this, plays into a certain caricature of the pied piper leading the herd astray.
I honestly though, think she does know all this. I don’t think she isn’t smart (double negative is appropriate here). I think she’s being extremely political and choosing what political beliefs about education she endorses that butters her bread. She really does epitomize Doublethink.
Our current forward trajectory is at best stagnant if not trending downwards – how many times must we repeat this cycle before we believe enough is enough (and that’s assuming you value test scores as a measure of something other than poverty).
State Superintendent Mary Ellen Elia hasn’t done her homework. Tenaciously adhering to standards which have been proven in some cases harmful is being insensitive, pinheaded and stubborn. Education dept. in the states are suppose to represent the will of the educated parents. Parents are the child’s first educators.
“The U.S. never led the world on test scores. When the first international tests were given in the 1960s, the U.S. students came in last. Yet over the next 50 years, our nation surpassed the other 11 nations that took the same test by every measure: economic productivity, technological innovation, military might, creativity, and democratic institutions. The test scores of 15-year-olds do not predict our future. The policies of our government, the decisions of corporations to outsource jobs, our treatment of our children and communities matter more.”
How about checking the suicide rate of the leading countries.
It would appear to me that an international test would be more invalid than our present aligned standardized tests. As Dr. Ravitch said, there are more important issues than test scores. Educators have posted numerous articles on this site stating the present standardized testing is invalid. It appears to me that an international test for sure would be invalid on many counts – from the people composing to the people correcting/assessing.
If two people walk away from a painting with a different perceptive because of their values how can a body of educators come to a consensus on a far wider range such as international creativity?
We need more leaders like Jeanette Deutermann, our opt out leader, to fire up our unions and take action. We need another Lech Walesa to rise up to form a solidarity teacher union as Poland did in the 1990s with the dock workers.
Did this woman “fail up” when she came to New York State? It’s people like this who wrecked watching “The Office” for me. When you are surrounded with people like David Brent (British version) or Michael Scott (American version), these fictional characters no longer seem quite so funny….
“Upwardly Mobile”
MaryEllen fails up
Like everyone else falls down
Like Donald Trump’s prenup
She never loses ground
Fictional though he may be, at least Michael Scott’s clueless character (I’m far less familiar with the British version) was sometimes leavened by his coming through at critical moments and showing an underlying competence and decency.
Decency of any kind, professional, moral or personal, is rarely if ever found among so-called reformers. whose entire agenda (and, seemingly, their entire Being) is fundamentally predicated on destroying a precious public good and siphoning off the remains, or advancing themselves by being a cog in that machine.
There are three general types of so-called education reformers: Naifs, Opportunists and Monsters.
The Naifs are young, idealistic types who’ve been seduced by the siren song of so-called reform, don’t know any history and believe the lies they’re told. Most of them are not bad people, but they are clueless. These people either learn what’s happening in/to the schools (a minority) and become activists in and/or outside their school buildings while committing to public education, or flee the schools in horror (the majority), or become Opportunists, who will do whatever it takes, drink and spew untold gallons of Kool-Aid, step on their colleagues throats to get ahead, and turn on a dime leaving yesterday’s reform panacea in the trash while forcing those below them to commit to the new one.
The Opportunists are the middle management of so-called reform, which would be impossible to administer without their willful, eager collaboration. This would describe your run-of-the-mill abusive Principal, AP, or mid-level local or state educrat.
Then there are the Monsters, the ones who fund, develop and enthusiastically implement so-called reform from positions of real wealth and power, further empowering and enriching themselves by smashing and grabbing public education, destroying teacher’s lives, overturning democracy, and limiting public school students’ futures.
Needless to say, these Monsters and their apparatchiks tell us it’s all for the benefit of “the kids,” children who to them are nothing more than political props, sound bite references and data sets to be monetized as soon as possible.
It is literally impossible to overstate the grotesque greed, will to power, deceptiveness and moral ugliness behind the actions of these people. Every time you think they’ve reached an ethical nadir, they sink even lower.
from the linked article: “This fall, the state Education Department, as part of a review mandated by end-of-session legislation, will be asking teachers, parents, administrators and the public for comments and suggestions about the standards — which standards should be changed, which are not grade-appropriate and which standards work, Elia told POLITICO New York.” I thought the CC$$ were copyrighted and couldn’t be changed. It would have been prudent if teachers, parents, administrators and the public had been invited to comment on the CC$$ before they were foisted on states across the country. America has been scammed.
The reformers always fail to mention the United States leads the world, by far, in the application and approval for world patents 😉
If some lonesome alien just floated into this nation … and had only the Common Core pronouncements as a guide … they’d immediately assume that they were now stuck in some bottom-of-the-barrel country populated by a species that was about an inch beyond bacteria on the evolutionary scale.
This is their tiresome ploy. Failure is all around … and we’re all too, too oblivious to see all of this with our very own eyes … because near-bacteria hasn’t that sort of sophistication. If all of this were true, we’d all be packing our trunks and marching off to blissful lives in Guatemala or Mali or Nepal. I guess we’re too stupid to even move. That must be it, right?
What’s so stunning to me is the fact that so many of us are still here … and that our miserable, failing nation is the most desired destination on the planet. All of which begs certain questions that are never, ever addressed by the Common Core corps.
Here’s the real mystery … How has America maintained its premier economic circumstances when we are populated by such uneducated dolts? How is that this nation is ground zero for all sorts of medical innovations … and that people from the Arab world and Asia and Europe zoom here for medical treatment? Oh! And why are our universities the most desired in the world? And can they explain the happy accident why we have the best standard of living the world has ever experienced? Help me out here, will ya?
How is it that our military is the most technologically advanced? And what explains the fact that we produce enough food-stuffs to feed ourselves … and vast portions of the world? I’m stumped why we’re the first to offer emergency services when disaster strikes around the globe … and folks seem numb to the USA insignia on replacement equipment, food, and supplies. Did I fail to mention the doctors, engineers, and EMT professionals we send as well?
That’s a lot of very dumb folks doing some miraculous things.
Now, to our schools. Something’s wrong, alright. Our schools don’t behave according to the Common Core observations. Our public school faculties are some of the most credentialed on the planet.These public schools lay the foundation that has made America the most recognized Nobel prize producing nation of all-time. No country has ever been so inventive as America. None. We lead in medical inventions and innovations … the same for computer technologies … as well as for mechanical innovations of all sorts. Man, those dumb Americans are the luckiest folks the world’s ever seen!
These failing public schools have produced world-renown playwrights, artists, actors, musicians, vocalists, and authors of all sorts. These dreadful public schools have given rise to admired engineers and architects and urban planners. They’ve yielded ship designers and astronauts … and the vessels they use to speed around space. We accidentally put men on the moon and recently bumped into Pluto. Ooops! Hope that mistake doesn’t happen again! … some folks will be very embarrassed.
I hate to mention our political maturity, but I have to. I know we’re supposed to be extremely basic thinkers according to those gifted Common Core pushers, but what explains the relative historical, non-violent political experience in America? We don’t lop off the noggins of lousy rulers. We don’t have a coup every other full moon. And we have dozens of nations world-wide that have modeled themselves after our political foundations. We’d better call them with the bad news that we’re not worth emulating. We’re failures.
Apologies for the over-the-top sarcasm, but lots and lots of very fine people have had their reputations battered by these frauds who premise that American schools are huge disasters. It’s time to get in their faces …
It’s ironic that even these asinine Common Core critics cannot give credit to the very experience that allowed their fertile minds to crank out such a creative and embellishing litany of lies. What ungrateful failures!
Denis Ian
Hurrah ! Beautifully done, Denis !
Time to do some Close Reading Commissioner Elia!
On Thursday, September 24, Commissioner Elia responded to a Sienna Research Institute Poll indicating that New Yorkers are displeased with Common Core Standards by saying “we cannot go backwards”. She gave POLITICO the same line that all reformists rely upon: “The United States used to lead the world educationally, but we’ve fallen to the middle of the pack. Our students are lagging behind, and the global economy is growing more competitive every day.” Clearly, someone using this rhetoric is unfamiliar with our schools, and more importantly, the students who inhabit them. We simply cannot rely upon fraudulent data to define our students and their teachers. Today I decided to take a look at the data driving this erroneous statement that has been used over the last ten years to decimate my profession.
First of all, one of the sources of this data is — Pearson, our favorite testing conglomerate. Considering that Pearson has made a number of transgressions in its own programs, including the use of proprietary material on its tests and the infamous “talking pineapple” story, it would be quite easy to question the validity of the data, but for argument’s sake, let’s accept it. When you look at the countries that rank above the United States, every single one (Japan, South Korea, Finland) is a country with a homogeneous population. The students in their classrooms come from similar cultural backgrounds with a common language.
As a public school teacher in the United States, I have tremendous pride for the wide variety of cultures in my classroom. Over the years, students have taken our class around the globe and back with the rich cultural wealth they bring to the classroom. But as we work together from a variety of languages and cultures, our failed progress on an alternate trajectory should not be deemed the epitome of our failure. Alternatively, as the number of refugees worldwide continues to soar, we need to stop the “failure game”, step away from erroneous standards, assessments and teacher evaluation programs and truly ask what we can do in the classroom that promotes the development of lifelong learners.
We must all keep in mind that the parents of those 200,000 students who refused New York State Testing last year (myself included), refused for the following reasons:
1. Standards that are not developmentally appropriate for our children.
2. Hours of assessments that do not align with the standards, have fluctuating “passing scores” that inhibit the determination of annual progress and provide no value to the teachers working with our children.
3.The use of flawed assessments our children take to create fake “Growth Scores” for their teachers.
Elia demonstrated she has a lot to learn about the state of New York, its teachers, but more importantly, its students.
Melissa McMullan
6th Grade Teacher
Comsewogue School District
Port Jefferson Station, NY
A statewide strike is the only chance to restore ny education
Brad,
It’s illegal in New York for teachers to strike. But I’ve often thought that teachers do many other things outside teaching that they don’t have to do. If they stopped doing those things, people might actually realize what they do for free.
Yes, educators would lose two days pay for each day they strike… Illegal? Would someone hold me down in my classroom? It is the only option left… There is no pendulum swinging here. As more laws are passed, public education will die a quick death. All of the letters and phone calls have fallen on deaf ears.
In most industries, it’s the Boss who uses the threat of a strike to intimidate employees.
In NYC, it’s our union mis-leadership which uses the threat of a strike to intimidate educators into voting for the inferior contracts they negotiate and the “collaboration” (their term, not mine) with so-called reform they boast of, since a strike would result in the termination of automatic union dues deduction. That would immediately halt income going into the honey pots that pay for $100,000-plus salaries and double (UFT and DOE) pensions they draw, while the membership continues to be beaten down and demoralized.
I would I can’t believe she was picked for the job but given the climate she is perfect. Ignorant and dismissive of the will of the people. The beatings will continue until moral improves..
Dont know much about Common Core, but I know it sent shock waves through our little apt in the Bronx when our 6 grader brought home her scores yesterday and she was below Grade Level in ELA. She goes to a good parochial school, gets great grades; the school worked well for her older sister- got her a scholarship to a nice independent high school.
I was very confused about the disconnect between her school grades- all very good- and this poor test score. (Also thought I wasn’t at grade level myself as a parent, if I didnt know until she was 11 that she wasn’t at gradce level for reading).
You know your daughter is just fine. What are you going to trust: a test designed to fail a majority of students or the judgement of a school that you know and trust? Don’t let a test score designed to label most kids as below grade level define your child. Dismiss it.