Angie Sullivan teaches kindergarten students in Las Vegas. Many of her students are poor. This was the discussion at the last board meeting. The board decided to spend $613,325 on more testing.
“The last thing African American students need is additional testing.
Vegas is facing a crisis. A severe and drastic teacher shortage in urban Vegas.
African American students are more likely to have no teacher.
We are missing teachers. 30,000 kids without a teacher? The school named after Martin Luther King has 8 licensed teachers and everyone else is temporary. A staff of 70 substitutes?
But we will add more testing to already at-risk kids?
African American Victory schools had an almost 100% White Administrative Staff show up this evening to ask for more testing.
An administrator speaking to the board just claimed: kids are sad when they cannot be tested? Really?
Does the school board really believe that more data of any sort will be key to improvement?
More testing is useful? Formative or summative?
This teacher will state clearly. This is a tragedy.
I would love to see the full deal. And who this vendor really is that just sideswiped the usual vendor approval process. Who is connected to this vendor and to this deal? Garvey brought the legality up several times. Good point. Voted yes anyhow.
No teachers. No teachers. No teachers.
Where is the additional support? This is supposed to help a teacher who does not exist? This will help the substitute?
Not negotiating in good faith.
Yes to testing? No to teachers.
Great example how priorities are skewed and how bad choices are made.
If you dont help kids – which is work done by skilled labor – all the data in the world is useless. It is people on the ground who love kids – who will turn schools around or help at-risk kids.
Bad mistake.
Tragedy.
And legislators – the board blamed you several times this evening for not giving them much time. Seems they do not value you either. They routinely blame you. They blame me too.
Join the club.”
“Angie.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Such a tragic situation.
LikeLike
And who will they blame when the test scores are poor? The 8 licensed teachers that are the ones sticking around in spite of all the obstacles? The temporary employees who most likely aren’t around long enough to have an impact? It certainly won’t be the administration, school board, the politicians or even the ugly internet commenters, all of who make good, qualified candidates think twice about a career in teaching.
LikeLike
About Angie Sullivan’s comment about Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary: For about 8 years I have worked as a full time teacher at MLK ES. The tragic demise had everything to do with an undisclosed agenda forwarded by top ranking district administrators without any input from the affected neighborhood community, teachers, students, and support staff. I spoke face to face, personally with the Superintendent about the growing concern and was told that the situation “…was being looked into and monitored.” This was three times, besides the other meetings I attended over the school year bringing up my concern along with other teachers involved.
So the net result was that ALL the teaching staff left but three long-suffering, soon to retire, dedicated teachers. One is still teaching in the classroom, and the other two are housed in separate rooms as Strategists. Over the years, many effective teachers became frustrated over the growing lack of respect, the adding of responsibilities without proper support and with subtracting less critical duties/tasks for a balanced and fair workload. The overall school site facility was allowed to become run down without proper maintenance, with 80% of the landscape perishing for lack of care. After school programs were minimized or eliminated, and the long established MLK ES PTA was trashed by the incoming principal and went “dark” after nearly 30 years of being a vital part of the school’s functioning and family involvement. The school’s instructional materials and fixtures were placed in black plastic trash bags and tossed into 28 cubic yard refuge dumpsters for several months. Perfectly good, useable, instructional stuff. I wrote endlessly in the Las Vegas Sun and Las Vegas Review Journal about all this to NO AVAIL.
Retaliation and bullying became so pronounced, that myself and several teachers and support staff sought protection through our union associations. We all would still be there IF this school district dealt with problematic administration, but that simply did not happen and the fallout has rippled across the community. The message is sent: Top-down leadership has the absolute power to do as they wish without transparency nor accountability. And folks wonder WHY there is a teacher shortage!
Thank you, Angie Sullivan, for keeping the issue alive until it is resolved. You are our true social justice champion shining a beacon during dark times!
🙂 Star Ali Mistriel, Teacher
LikeLike
Your story is horrifying. It’s as if it was coming from a developing country, and not the wealthiest nation on the planet. Do these billionaires and “reformers” have no shame? Where are Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Arne Duncan, Barack Obama, etc. in this catastrophe? How about the idiot Nevada state legislature and governor who just passed vouchers? WHERE IS THE MEDIA?????????????NOWHERE!!!!! And yet it’s all “for the kids.”
P.S. What kid is “sad when they can’t test?” Who could even say that with a straight face????
LikeLike
And where are NEA and AFT?????????????????? Aren’t they supposed to support education????
Lily Eskelsen-Garcia and Randi Weingarten: I know you and others read this blog. STAND UP AND SAY SOMETHING! THIS IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY.
LikeLike
Lily and Randi are too busy cozying up to the privateers and pretending we all support Hillary.
LikeLike
Do you know about the following, what I found this morning before correcting essays? Is it true? Look who’s at the bottom of the list.). Check this, please:
“In the early days of this collaboration, labor leaders joined leaders in politics, business and non-profit organizations in staffing the faculty at the Broad Superintendents Academy, training the future Broad Superintendents. According to 2002 Broad press releases participants included:
— Rod Paige, U.S. Secretary of Education in the G.W. Bush Administration
— Henry Cisneros, Secretary of HUD in the first Clinton Administration and now CEO of American CityVista
— William Cox, Managing Director of Broad, School Evaluation Services
— Chris Cross, Senior Fellow, Center on Education Policy
— Chester E. Finn, Jr., President, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation
— Frances Hesselbein, Chairman, The Drucker Foundation
— Don McAdams, Founder, Center for Reform of School Systems
— Donald Nielsen, President, Hazelton Corporation, Chairman of the 2WAY Corporation
— Hugh B. Price, President and CEO, National Urban League
— Paul Ruiz, Principal Partner, Education Trust
— Adam Urbanski, Director of Teacher Union Reform Network
— Randi Weingarten, President, United Federation of Teachers [now National President, American Federation of Teachers].”
http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=4016
LikeLike
My union was trumped by the a Emergency Financial Manager. If the EFM wanted us to take a 10% pay cut, the unions “hands were tied”. This happened. Also, our EFM pushed “high standards and accountability” through standardized test scores. Our union? No support.
Ugh.
LikeLike
Absence of professional teachers and more testing will mean failing results and that failure will justify the voucher roulette now in play.
It is a deliberate, dangerous and undemocratic game.
Yes, $5000 Vouchers For Everybody = Las Vegas Style Education!
“This school year, part of the 2015-2016 NV Education Budget will go toward one of the most expensive voucher systems ever attempted in the country. Parents who choose private, online or home education over the public system will soon be eligible for vouchers worth about $5,000.
This money will be available to higher-income families as well (though low-income students and those with disabilities will receive a bit more). Supporters argue that the program will give all parents the opportunity to choose the schools they believe will best serve their children. Politically, it also appeases taxpayers who do not benefit from the reforms because their children do not use the public system.
Private school tuition in Nevada can be as high as $12,000, and the biggest problem with the vouchers is that the poorest families will be unable to make up the difference. So, in the coming year, as middle-class families who may otherwise have used the public school system forgo it for the private, the vouchers will undermine whatever economic and racial diversity Las Vegas has achieved.
These vouchers will only reinforce the assumption that NV private schools are successful and public ones are not.
In Nevada, about one in four children live in poverty, not because their schools have failed them, but because their parents juggle multiple jobs on a stagnant minimum wage, have little job security and are denied paid time off.
Erratic and unpredictable work hours make it difficult to organize transportation to and from school and after-school child care. Long workdays limit parents’ ability to ensure that children’s academic responsibilities outside of school are being met. Low wages without benefits make it impossible to afford enriching activities outside the classroom or quality health care that plays a crucial role in academic success.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/26/opinion/why-vouchers-wont-fix-vegas-schoo…
LikeLike
NV is a mess. Its powerful are pushing for a massive increase in charters. They can’t lose, because they have all angles covered – unless parents come out in droves.
However, many parents want their kids out of classrooms where they are held back by so many low, IEP, and ELL kids without adequate support, because tracking is a dirty word now, and sped & ell do not have the support they need.
It remains to be seen what will happen when the $5000 voucher-by-another-name kicks in. Naturally, there are legal challenges to it, as it allows public money to go not only private, but religious and home school. (Can’t wait to see what happens when it goes to a Muslim school. Stay tuned.)
LikeLike
Pretty unbelievable, but that’s what we’re all facing…just not to the same degree. More testing when you haven’t enough teachers is malfeasance!
LikeLike
PLEASE READ: I was a substitute for a school in Las Vegas. After four weeks I was told , severl times, what a great job I was doing. The students loved me and the parents were supportive. ( Charter School ). This school was trying to create a position for me so I could stay on. Friday afternnoon I was called into the Principals office and asked to leave.
My crime? A few comments to a mother ( this was in confidence ) stating that the administration is going to be very, very, good – they just needed time to improve. For that I was fired.
LikeLike
From the posting:
“kids are sad when they cannot be tested”—
😳
Another example of how the “thought leaders” of the self-styled “education reform” movement are, IMHO, misnamed.
In order to be a “thought leader” don’t you need to have at least one or two of the first item in the two-word term?
“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” [Ionesco]
😎
LikeLike
Man do I remember the testing days. The school I worked for had many – probably over 12 per year with the “ACT interim assessments every quarter”, NWEA MAP, STAR MATH, and whatever else they decided would be necessary (common core). After about the third test that year, a majority of the kids shut down – they literally would click through the answers, or wouldn’t show up to school. They dreaded test days.
I guess the point is that we lost instructional time for many tests the kids couldn’t wait to take! 😎 Haha.
LikeLike
I always say, ” anyone can point out the problem, bring me a solution” My solution , as limited as it might be, is to start a school built on the concepts and ideas of Krishnamurti,Parker Palmer, and Finland. Adapt them to the ethos of our society and create a model that works. Who would care to join me in this effort? I believe the majority of teachers in Las Vegas are so sick and tired of the outdated system, they are ready to leave in a heart beat.
I don’t care to be a big school with fancy titles and marketing. Keep it simple, focus on the kids, involve parents but they don’t run the school, they contribute and share ideas.
It has to be a team effort with no single person taking the credit. As CEO my salary needs to be right below the lowest paid teacher as anything else sends a message: I am more important than you.
I am serious about this and already have a ton of support – Teachers are the foundation of education and must be treated as such. School HAS to be a happy place with limited stress and lot’s of room to be creative. Teachers need time for breaks, time for thinking and brainstorming, and when they go home LEAVE the work behind. Homework? Not a chance – if they don’t learn in 7 hours do you really think they will learn in 10?
For those who suggest this won’t work: Research Finland
LikeLike
Finnish educators say that their best ideas are based on the work of John Dewey.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Politicians Are Poody Heads and commented:
And yet another example of “Yes” to testing, and “No” to teachers.
Children who are at risk, in particular, need more trained teachers and more resources and support in the school and classroom. Not additional tests.
Oh, and BTW, these children, their parents, their neighborhoods, their entire communities, need more resources and support.
But it seems as though we would rather spend more money on more and more standardized testing, rather than doing something meaningful about the problems that these children confront on a daily basis, and about the profound problems of poverty in this country.
LikeLike
The EDReform movement and like organizations seek cheap, easy testing and more educational “opportunities” to help bring down public education and teacher’s unions. It’s that simple.
LikeLike
I am offended by this article as a Caucasian teacher teaching in inner city schools. When Ms. Sullivan states “African American Victory schools had an almost 100% White Administrative Staff show up this evening to ask for more testing.” I think she meant to say that 100% teachers showed up this evening to ask for more testing. I am a proud inner city public school teacher. I feel this article has an agenda here, which is very one-sided. What has the race of a teacher got to do with trying to make a difference? It does not and should not matter if a teacher is Hispanic teaching Caucasian kids, African Americans teachers teaching Caucasian kids, or Caucasian teachers teaching African American kids etc. The fact that a teacher regardless of race decides to go into the teaching profession to make a difference gets my sincere respect. This author forgets all the kids from all races that are poverty stricken. To me, and with great respect to the author it is a combination of a lot of things. Though I disagree with the present charter school system, I applaud all teachers including Ms. Sullivan, who teach in public, private, and charter regardless of any race trying their best every day in a tough period of time that the teaching profession is facing.
LikeLike
I so agree with you. When I go into the inner city the students are NOT a color to me..they are students.
LikeLike
I am curious to hear what specific reasoning the board agreed that testing the students is what is best. Data of how students are performing is important, but if students are over-tested, they likely will not put forth full effort towards the test. It sounds like the problem of a lack of teachers to provide a stable and enriching education for these students is established, and testing them again will just confirm the need to make changes to the material the students are learning.
LikeLike