Ann Marie Corgill, Alabama’s teacher-of-the-year for 2014-15, resigned on October 29. She had had it. If states treat their best teachers the way she was treated, shame on them.

Mercedes Schneider sums up the sorry story here.

“She is state certified to teach primary through third grade. Corgill is also National Board Certified to teach through seventh grade.

Corgill began the 2015-16 school year teaching second grade but was moved to fifth grade.

The state says that she now needs to renew her state certification to include teaching fifth grade.

But here’s the kicker:

When she was chosen as state teacher of the year, Corgill was teaching fourth grade– outside of her state certification.

On October 29, 2015, Corgill decided she had had enough and tended her resignation. Here is an excerpt:

“After 21 years of teaching in grades 1-6, I have no answers as to why this is a problem now, so instead of paying more fees, taking more tests and proving once again that I am qualified to teach, I am resigning. …

“Please know that I wanted to give my all and share my expertise with Birmingham City Schools. …”

“In order to attract and retain the best teachers, we must feel trusted, valued and treated as professionals. It is my hope that my experience can inform new decisions, policies and procedures to make Birmingham City Schools a place everyone wants to work and learn.”

Rick Hess, senior education fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, did not join the crowd of apologists and excuse-makers who downplayed the meaning of the 2015 NAEP scores. He said the scores were “dismal,” “a train wreck,” and “mass carnage.”

He noted that Secretary Duncan was in “damage control” mode. 

Hess writes:

“Viewed against more than two decades of prior scores, these results can only be described as a train wreck. They were so disturbing mostly because we’ve gotten so used to steady improvement in NAEP scores. Never before had fourth-grade math scores declined. Eighth-grade reading scores hadn’t fallen since 1996. Fourth-grade reading scores haven’t dipped since 2003, or eighth-grade reading since 2005. In other words, the widespread carnage on display this year is wholly unprecedented. The Obama administration, which has bragged about the efficacy of its federally fueled school-reform agenda, immediately moved to aggressive damage control. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan explained that the declines should in no way raise questions about Obama-promoted education policies such as Common Core or the administration’s Race to the Top program. “Big change never happens overnight,” Duncan said. “I’m confident that over the next decade, if we stay committed to this change, we will see historic improvements.”

Duncan’s insistence that it will take a while for Obama policies to bear fruit would be more compelling if he had not — just last week— already credited Obama policies such as the School Improvement Grant program with boosting the nation’s graduation rate. Or if, two years ago, he hadn’t credited administration policies for 2013’s NAEP gains. At the time, he said, “All eight states that had implemented the state-crafted Common Core State Standards at the time of the 2013 NAEP assessment showed improvement . . . and none of the eight states had a decline in scores.” He added, “Tennessee, D.C., and Hawaii have done some really tough, hard work, and it’s showing some pretty remarkable dividends” on the NAEP results.”

Other commentators blamed the recession of 2008, but Hess pointed out that the recession did not affect scores in 2009 or 2011.

There are many reasons why scores go up or down, but whatever they may be, NAEP 2015 is a disaster for Duncan and Obama’s years of boasting about their education agenda. You can’t claim credit when scores go up but disown the scores when they go down.

Having heard about the fierce urgency of reform for seven years, now we are told that it will take a decade to see the fruits of high-stakes testing and racing to the top. That doesn’t sound like fierce urgency. It sounds like the worn-out status quo, making excuses for failure.

My own hunch about the test-score stagnation is that teachers, principals, students, and schools were confused by the constant disruption that reformers prize. Children and schools need consistency and stability. That’s precisely what reform could not deliver.

Corporations can re-invent themselves, but schools must be a refuge from a world of uncertainty. To import that uncertainty into the school does not improve education. It turns the schools into heartless, soulless, cold institutions where teachers and principals come and go; staff members disappear. The school itself may close and vanish.

Turmoil is not conducive to teaching and learning.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426222/reading-math-national-assessment-educational-progress-arne-duncan

Daniel Katz says: When President Obama says so. Or Secretary Duncan. They like to use the words of their critics but change nothing.

He writes:

“Honestly, at this point in his administration, expecting President Obama to well and truly take action to reverse the damage of the “test and punish” era of school accountability is like expecting the Bush administration to not start unnecessary wars. That, however, did not prevent the national media from declaring that President Obama’s weekend call for reducing the burden of standardized testing in public schools a major departure from previous policies. David Dayen of Salon gushed that the President was breaking “with twenty years of precedent,” and Mother Jones’ Julia Lurie wrote that “the announcement represents a significant change in course for the Obama administration.” Nearly every major news outlet declared the announcement a move to limit the time spent on standardized testing in school…”

But that’s all blather, says Katz. The reformers are too lazy to identify which schools need extra help and which are beyond help.

“School accountability and improvement is difficult and often uncertain work. When used honestly, standardized test score data can tell you where to begin, but it should never be confused with evidence of what needs to happen in a school. Are there schools with low test scores and low value added that are Dickensian nightmares that should be closed as soon as possible? Sure. There are 98,000 public schools in the country. But there are also schools with low test scores and low value added that are full of devoted teachers, strong school leaders, and committed parents, but who need resources to provide genuine educational opportunities for all learners and to do so in a way that does not cheat them of a well-rounded and holistic education. For that matter, there are schools that boast of their great test scores and high value added, but they get there by being Victorian work houses worthy of Scrooge where children are basically beaten into submission.

“The point is that you do not know until you go to the school and actually investigate.

“But the Arne Duncans and the John Kings do not want to do that. They want to sit in offices in Albany and Washington, look over spreadsheets, and make sweeping judgements about which schools are winners and which schools are losers. They cannot really give up the high stakes attached to the standardized tests because that would mean they would have to do the hard of work of accountability and renewal, the work that actually can inform smart choices based upon community input.”