Merryl Tisch is stepping down as Chancellor of the New York Board of Regents, ending a 20-year tenure on the board. The New York Times interviewed her about her time in office.
Tisch led the state’s effort to win Race to the Top funding. The state received $700 million, promising to increase charters, adopt the Common Core, create a longitudinal database for students, and evaluate teachers by test scores.
She promoted high-stakes testing, test-based teacher evaluation, charter schools, and everything expected by Race to the Top. And she didn’t just comply, she truly believes that testing, Common Core, and accountability will increase equity and reduce achievement gaps. She did it for the kids.
“She tried to do too much, too fast.
“That is Merryl H. Tisch’s appraisal of her tenure as chancellor of the Board of Regents, the top education post in New York State, as she prepares to step down at the end of the month.
“Her critics say the same thing.
“A champion of the Common Core learning standards, Dr. Tisch, 60, pushed for the creation of new, harder tests based on those standards and for teacher evaluations tied to students’ performance on the exams.
“That set off a backlash in which a fifth of the eligible students sat out the state’s third- through eighth-grade reading and math tests last spring. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, once her ally on using test scores in teacher evaluations, did an about-face….
““If anything, I fault myself for being ambitious for every child,” she said.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Her rationalization really reassures me.
I am sure it does for MANY others also.
LOL
Actually of course it is NOT funny.
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Via @NPR: America’s High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries’ High School Dropouts http://n.pr/1XdgccO
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MH, that must explain why the US is the most powerful nation in the world
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@Dianeravitch: Just stating that the US is the most powerful nation in the world does not make the US the most literate nation nor brightest citizens! Your statement also proves how arrogant US citizens can be!
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This study exposes just how stratified our class system is. Students from affluent educated families do better than similar students in other countries. Yet our HS students fare much worse.
And let’s not forget every HS graduate is now a product of test-and-punish NCLB education reform. How’s that testing thing working out for us?
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YES. Please, please, let’s not anyone forget that it is now more than thirteen years of an each year more viciously dumbed-down, don’t-stray-outside-the-box invasion from NCLB and R2T — that’s a full cycle for some of our children. We now have so many, many students who have never known any other form of education.
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RATT—-We also need to consider the growing 10% of students in US schools who are immigrant or refugee students who have their own unique barriers accessing and learning content. Some of these students are not proficient in their host country language and have not receive any education prior to entering our schools. They enter our schools at all levels but secondary students have greater challenges passing tests and meeting graduation requirements.
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We are a country of haves, and mostly, have-nots. The growing, impoverished under-class no longer sees education as their ticket out the door. The American Dream for many has been replaced by a living nightmare. Just look to the inner cities to see a level of subsistence that is right out of some third-world country. Communities where substance abuse, crime, gangs, severe unemployment, family dysfunction, sub-standard health and nutrition, crumbling infrastructures, environmental dangers, and hopelessness are the norm. Communities where incarceration is more common than college. Is it any wonder the parents and children from this under-class can’t buy into academic achievement as away of changing their lives.
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Well supposedly caring, professional, credentialed “educators” need to go out into the real world then and talk to the local employers and to college professors and get the real scoop on how you are failing when it comes to turning out students that can read and write and do basic math in their NATIVE HOST LANGUAGE of ENGLISH!!!!
YOU ARE FAILING!!!
YOU GET AN F for educating greater than 75% of the student population!!!!
I as a parent have talked to these people regarding my child and that has been what we have heard.
We talk to these people because my child struggles in college because the public education system failed to educate with proficiency when it came to instruction in literacy & numeracy.
Your profession is failing in its purpose and mission and that is fact! Your rhetoric is just that.
The reality is that the product of the public education system is one’s failure to teach them to be proficient in literacy and numeracy while you’re afraid to be accountable and acknowledge that you’re failing to educate a significant number of the future citizens of this country.
And consequently, this is why employers will continue to bring in foreign EDUCATED workers, predominately from India and other Asian countries, to fill employment openings that our own under-educated NATIVE BORN children should have been able to have filled if the education system was doing it’s job properly.
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RageAgainstTheTestocracy : Because you are not teaching them how to read, write and do math effectively! Your profession is feeding generational illiteracy and poverty! The majority of students out there are unable to access any other trajectory because of the same circumstances you blame, but I can tell you first hand that if schools really and truly worked with parents rather than dismissing them and worked with the struggling learners using more effective methods, you can be much more effective in changing their life’s and future paths from that of another generation of poverty and illiteracy to one of great success. But your profession has to stop with the rhetoric and go back to the drawing board. Not everyone has to go to college, but even blue collar jobs in the trades these days need students that are proficient in reading, writing and math, which is just not the case these days. Even in suburbia….
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The truth is that “reform” is nothing more than an oligarch plot to make profits off of education. The intermediate step of charter schools, selling them as help for impoverished urban kids, was a ploy to privatize public education, with the end goal of elimination of tax supported schools.
Bill Gates worked to get financing for the schools of Reed Hastings, who can be seen in a video calling for an end to democratically elected school boards. Bill Gates is listed as an investor (not his foundation) for Bridge International Academies, which the World bank promotes to the exclusion of tax supported education. Z-berg is also an investor. Recently, a Facebook board member falsely claimed India was better off under colonialism.
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Well, how informed are you about how our classes of citizens compare to other countries in terms of immigration, race and density in urban areas? How informed are you about the actions, intentions and results of the current deform movement? And, if you are well-informed, what do you suggest?
We hear you loud and clear. The system failed you. The system failed for your child, your young adult, now. It continues to fail for many. The deforms have made things worse across the board.
What do you suggest?
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MH, enough trolling. Let me give you a different perspective, assuming your willing to listen.
All schools are not “failing”. I worked years in industry (high tech) and can assure you, on a aggregate level, America’s graduates far exceed the capability of most other countries. I can’t count the number of H1bs I hired that, while good employees, lacked the adaptability and critical thinking required to solve problems. In those countries that ARE on par with us, they support their schools, respect and value teachers, and believe in both a strong college OR vocational pathway. Are some schools “failing”? Sure, but the reasons rarely have to do with teacher competence.
Now I teach math. So you are free to blame us evil math teachers for your child’s struggle. I’ve heard it all before. Here’s the reality. I teach students who are “high risk” in math. Often, I battle a accumulation of years of external issues – poverty, health problems, learning challenges, disinterested parents, violence, drugs, mental health – the list goes on. I have never abandoned a student, but many parents have. Politicians blame teachers, but then cut social programs, employment opportunities, and health programs. Business complains, but then wiggles out of financially supporting schools, ships good jobs overseas, and pushes job training onto schools. Keep in mind, too, that k-12 works to retain and teach ALL students. Post secondary operates by screening out and eliminating students. Very different missions.
The students do lack various math skills. I see seniors unable to add fractions trying to solve trig problems. One common thread in math illiteracy is these students are reluctant learners and avoid math. Math is not sesame street. It takes careful study and practice. I can make it “entertaining” and I’ll try my best with a 150+ student roster to “differentiate” and individually reach out to each student, but America does not want great teachers, only inexpensive ones.
I am also a parent of a struggling student. Unlike you, I took responsibility from kindergarten for his learning. I followed his progress and alphabet soup of diagnoses. I didn’t just sit back and blame teachers, I actively worked with teachers. I learned about new subjects to help him through school. I reached out and showed interest. I even lost a job focusing on my kids’ well being. Were all teachers perfect? No, they are human. But I made it work. My kid is going to college. He still struggles, but the journey doesn’t end with some kids when they become adults. Think before unfairly indicting a profession.
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Thanks MathVale for saying exactly what I could not put into words.
MH, Please try to understand that excellent teaching does not necessarily translate into excellent student achievement. This whole teaching-learning experience is a three way street: Parent-student-teacher. We can do our part, but nothing good comes of it if the other two participants don’t do their fare share of the work. Now before you go blaming me for making excuses, what would you suggest we do about any of the following that many teachers commonly see in their classrooms:
Student A misses 38 days of instruction and rarely shows signs of illness.
Student B simply cannot or will not pay attention in class. Laughs, giggles, plays, makes rude remarks and has been told since birth that he will never graduate high school by his only parent.
Student C refuses to complete outside readings, never does homework, and proudly admits that they never study for tests.
Student D is showing early signs of mental illness brought on by serious environmental stressors.
Student E routinely goes to sleep to the sound of his mother getting verbally and physically abused by one of her revolving door boyfriends
Student F regularly smokes his breakfast before coming into first period class.
Student G enters in September reading 3 grade levels below what is needed.
Student H exhibits unmistakable signs of dyslexia, yet there is no screening available.
Student I arrives late – every day to first period math class..
Student J has a mother so addicted to crack cocaine that she chooses her drugs over her son.
Student K enters math class without the fundamental, pre-requisite math skills needed for grade level success.
Student L is 14 years old and has been impregnated by a high school senior who immediately says, sayonara.
Student M has been put on long term, out of school suspension for a serious infraction and misses months of in class instruction.
Student N is constantly reminded that she can’t do math – by her mother (who couldn’t do math either).
Student O does not have one relative who has graduated high school.
Student P has a father who just got out of prison and is now threatening her mother
Student Q suffers from lead poisoning – or is it fetal-alcohol syndrome?
Student R has an IQ of 60 and was mainstreamed along side the future valedictorian
Student S doesn’t have one adult in their life who ever held down a decent paying job.
Student T is more interested in dealing drugs than the Pythagorean theorem.
Student U is a dangerous person and will be spending most of their life behind bars.
Student V gets her attention by entertaining any boy who wants some.
Student W has never been read to by a parent.
Student X can’t wait to turn 16 so they can legally drop out.
Student Y has ADHD and his mother refuses to let him take the meds that would bring his condition under control.
Student Z is experiencing at least three of the above.
And we get 2.5 hours a week to “make a difference”
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If you do not like the fact that we remain the most economically and militarily powerful nation in the world your concern must shift to acceptance that 15 years of testing and advocating for privatization have not advanced our educational system. People like George Bush, Margaret Spelling, and Merryl Tisch now own the outcomes!. There agenda was to create a crisis and respond with “shock and awe” forcing change after change onto the educational system to promote. They wanted to turn the whole thing over to their hedge fund buddies. They did not foresee that the Opt Out movement would emerge to slow down their plan to abandon public education. They did not foresee that their effort to smear and discredit educators would fail because people know and support their child’s teacher. Now they own the intentional fiasco that they have created and while they are politically discredited the most creative solution they can come up with looking to the future is “rebranding” the Core. That is not going to work! Tisch was diabolical in her intention to overwhelm opposition and undermine confidence in public education. Let her go to her grave fully understanding that she has diminished the opportunity of millions of children to achieve success–and that her diabolical agenda was fully discredited. Tisch’s effort to salvage her legacy will fail just like her agenda to assure her wealthy friends would not be burdened by paying for the education of poor and brown skinned children. Tisch is a shameful person!
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RageAgainstTheTestocracy, What a great post of the A-Z of teaching! I’ll throw in picking up switch blades, the pettiness and poor judgment of some administrators, getting spit on or called an amazingly colorful plethora of names, the constant deluge of paper work, data gathering, and state forms, watching colleagues whisked to the ER, and on and on. Seems MH is part of the problem, not the solution.
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MH, oh, and people in Silicone Valley import H1bs because 1) they can be exploited as indentured servants, 2) employers can contract “consulting” firms to avoid U.S. laws, 3) it moves these costs off the books and variable as opposed to more fixed. There are plenty of highly capable engineers maybe a bit gray but out of work. Just ask former Disney employees. H1bs are about greed and money, not education. Please become more informed.
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MathVale : What period of “years” are you speaking? Today? Or 30 yrs ago? PS- I just had a conversation with a college professor lamenting about the functional illiteracy he sees and has to contend with routinely in today’s college classrooms!
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This is not intended as a criticism of you, MH, but a criticism of this whole conversation that has been reducing education and it successes and/or lack of it to generalizations that do nothing to further the conversation. Your child was obviously not well served by the public schools nor the foster care system, which, I imagine, probably was no help in preparing him to do well in school. Not only was he a young man who had grown up in a system not well known for nurturing children, but he most likely has significant learning disabilities as well. I won’t excuse your public schools although I would guess they were ill prepared to deal with the needs of a child who had spent most of his life with less than ideal support at home, school, or in the community. (As a special ed teacher, I was told at one point not to suggest any support for a student not available through the district because they would then be required to provide it.) Your providing one-to-one tutors was probably essential; I can’t imagine a child who had been so poorly served and was so far behind having much chance of success without that one on one support. I have never worked in a public school that could afford much less provide that level of support for its students on a routine basis. Given that schools have been routinely underfunded for years now and special education dollars are being reduced significantly, there is more than enough blame to go around. Think about the stories you hear of failures in social service cases and invariably it comes back to a caseworker with a caseload that is far too large for even two people to handle. Face it; public services are far down the list of priorities. As to the professor who pontificated on how poor his students are now, I wonder at the composition of his classes. I seriously doubt that they resemble those of thirty years ago. Anyway, I applaud you for the support you have given your son, and I applaud him for his hard work. He will make it, and he will graduate with the skills it takes to succeed in the working world. Reading probably will never be easy for him, but there are many successful people out there who have learned how to compensate through assistive tech and their own strengths in other areas.
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MathVale: PS- My son was one of those students to which you refer to as unteachable due to circumstances beyond their control.
So you blame me for my son’s challenges. Get this. He is not my biological child. He was my foster child who was not placed with my family until 8th grade. And get this… I fought for his rights for an appropriate education to fix what had been failures beyond his control and our control apparently as well.
Unlike his teachers throughout the years and the foster care system providers, we did do something about it! We BEGGED for him to be provided with what was offered at the school to other children. Local children from the community. But guess what? Your great professionals DENIED him the programming he needed for 4.5 school years. Even after a private neuro-psychologist attended 2 CSE meetings and advocated personally for him to have the program offered daily as well as another program for writing daily and to provide remedial help in Math skills that were found to be a weakness too! But they repeatedly denied to do so!!! So we spent thousands of dollars fighting for the schools to do their job, which they were being reimbursed to the tune of $27,000+ yr to provide, not by our local taxes, but his home district’s tax dollars. But our local district used plenty of their tax dollars in legal fees to not provide him those services.
He has thrived academically though DESPITE being DENIED an appropriate and proper education for the 12.5 yrs spent in public schools under the umbrella of “Special Educatio.” because of PRIVATE tutors, specialized in literacy methods for ELA, and good old fashioned effective instruction for math. You know how they did it? BY taking the time to actually care enough to see where the student struggled and to assist him in overcoming those weaker skill sets. It was not rocket science! It was just taking the EFFORT & providing EFFECTIVE instruction!!!!
But he still struggles with reading & writing & math and it is becasue of the failures of the schools and those that were responsible for ensuring he was not allowed to fall through the public ed cracks, but failed to keep his best interests in sight. The courts can do much more than they did for these kids. They should be speaking up for them to get the services they need from the public schools.
To hear how you blame poverty & disabilities for your professions lack of success in teaching students how to read, write and do foundational math, blows my mind.
We are not talking about graduating students that are going to be rocket scientists and physicists.
We are talking about just graduating students that are not functionally illiterate in ELA & Math after spending 13 yrs or more in public school systems an can function in entry level positions upon graduation from high school!
So please feel free to continue to blame the parents who like me did speak up and were involved and pointed out the failures and also chose to take on the responsiblity for a child who was not ours biologically and to raise and educate them and to ensure that they had the best foundation they could provide for them in the very limited time available to do so!
Thanks for being so supportive to families of students!
It is great to hear that you still do not see that it is the job of the schools to ensure that students leave the school system with literacy and numeracy skills.
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Akademos: I would suggest for teachers to go back to school and be informed about Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Dyscalculia and learn how to teach the majority of students vs the minority of students how to become literate in foundational ELA & Math skills. Your love for whole language guess at the words in context and wait to fail and fall behind and then let them languish is FAILING!
How about stop lying that you want involved parents, and when they show up at your school, you shut them down and build fortresses around yourselves!
How about not pushing parents outside of the school to get the services being offered in the school!
How about letting parents CHOOSE charter schools when your schools don’t want to deal with the academic problems you are facing and those kids need help overcoming?
How about just these 3 examples just for starters.
I can go on, but I think you get the idea.
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Other countries are comprised of natives. America is comprised of immigrants, illegal and legal, and more of them coming daily. The comparisons are apples to tires, to be fair. And MH, you’re a bit rude to the host. You should try being nicer.
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MH,
My child was not biological to us. But that was never an issue.
I’ll try to address your concerns. But I suspect your anger and tendency to blame will be to difficult to overcome.
As far as a professor complaining about “functional illiteracy”, well, pointing to earlier grades is a long and established tradition in education. Universities’ are seeing more students attend than ever. Where k-12’s mission is to accept and retain ALL students, post-secondary has in the past been a filter and gauntlet focused on eliminating those that could not achieve a degree. How many of us experienced the not so subtle message of “weed out” college courses? Try to find a university with the IEP support public schools offer.
Yes, parents of children with special needs and challenges must be advocates for their children. I am a parent of one. But as a teacher, I also realize there are limits to what can be done as an individual educator. It takes a well funded system of support. I’d imagine you took an adversarial position and drew the battle lines. I know of no teacher that said “today, I’m going to see how many kids I can ruin”. But you seem to be blaming teachers for what sounds like potentially serious issues with your student, the frustration and guilt that comes from raising challenging children, and the inevitable parenting setbacks and failures. I can only wonder how much better your situation and the outcome would have been if you would have taken more personal responsibility. Believe me, I know that anger, frustration and guilt better then you could imagine. You are not the first person overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles raising a child.
It does beg the question of why, if you hated the public schools so much, you stayed in them. Are you now also going to a public university? Many parents homeschool. Why didn’t you consider that? There are plenty of charters now, why not pick those? There’s even online charters. You mentioned tutoring. That was a good idea and many parents do that. So, why are you complaining about having to tutor? You keep saying you child lacked math skills. If he was not grade level, don’t you think you also bore some responsibility to help outside of school? Why not choose a special private school? I lost a job supporting my kid and we’ve gone into debt supporting him. Did you consider your role in providing extra help?
It is rather sad you indict all teachers based on your own difficulties. As America destroys its teachers and education, soon she will have no one to blame but herself.
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I think Jarts and Easy Bake ovens were “for the kids”.
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I think she will end up in the U.S. Dept of Ed with John KIng.
Both New Yorkers who want to destroy our education system.
We may have to START A NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF OUR OWN.
WHAT OTHER CHOICE DO WE HAVE?
TISCH IS NOT GOING AWAY. SHE WILL RISE UP TO A HIGHER OFFICE.
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Joan,
Your observation suggests that perhaps she and John King are having their own Race to the Top.
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“I did it for the kids” — didn’t you mean to say — “I did it to the kids.” ?
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Good riddance.
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I hope she doesn’t run for mayor.
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Good riddance!
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If anything, I fault myself for being ambitious for every child,” she said.”
Not really ambitious for every child.
All of those policies are based on totally wrong assumptions about the purposes and the benefits of public education for EVERY child.
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And so the smoldering ash heap of FAILED reformers gains one more body.
Meryl, say hello to Michelle, Campbell, David, Arne, Jeb, Andy, Billy, and John.
Can anyone name just one reformer who’s ideas or policies have done any of the following: closed the learning gap? reduced class sizes? attracted and retained high quality teachers? restored lost funding to public schools? improved pedagogy? opened multiple pathways for student success? inspired just one young person? opened doors of opportunity? developed enriched curricula? fixed crumbling schools?
worked to end generational poverty and dependence? paid any attention to the 97% of students not in charter schools?
Just one?
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I wish I could up vote this!
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Don’t forget Charlotte and Robert for their “extremely flexible” rigid rubric system that guarantees to instill reflection and improvement in every cookie cut teacher!!!
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Marzano and Danielson have promoted more dog-and-pony shows than the Ringling Brothers. Marzano’s rubrics line my bird cage and at least I can use my final evaluation as fire starter.
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These policies have not helped because they have more to do with being a power play or a money grab than the things that work for students.
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Stalin did it for ” Mother Russia.”
Hitler did it to purify the Aryan race.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Here’s a hint to see if you are on the wrong team. If you have to use lies, deception, cooking of the books, statistical manipulation and Orwellian language to further your agenda all so you can get a little extra money while using kids in your chess game to destroy a noble profession and democratic institution. …welll,……yeah, you might want to sit down, rethink your life and figure out how you can regain your soul.
The truth will set you free. Everything else is bondage.
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20 years tooooooooooo late!
She used children for $$B CorpProfits!
Hope she hears the constant streaming of tears from millions of children crying night after night and during mass exploitation toxic testing.
Parents MUST PROTECT their children from evil-does like her and from the Billionaires Boys Club.
May she take a long walk off a short pier.
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A complete lack of objectivity, humility and attention to facts on the ground—
Any question why I don’t see self-correction in the forecast for the leading enforcers and beneficiaries of corporate education reform?
😎
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They all do it for the kids and their corporate sponsors.
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“Ode to Meryl Tisch”
I did it for the kids
And all the other Pearsons
For NY testing bids
I really shed a tear some
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I am a very ordinary person. My whole life falls into the mediocre category by most measures of success. I raised four kids, volunteered in the community, and eventually went back to teaching special ed full time. Why is it that someone like me, with nowhere near the resources or the access to expert opinion that Tisch had, can see the flaws in the reformsters plans and also point to the research initiatives that have documented success? I know we all tend to live in our own little bubbles, but someone who is supposed to direct education for thousand of students should be familiar with the concerns of the communities she is supposed to serve. She has not been a good steward.
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She hasn’t been a good steward because she hasn’t done this for the children! Loved “Bob in So CA’s” words:
“Here’s a hint to see if you are on the wrong team. If you have to use lies, deception, cooking of the books, statistical manipulation and Orwellian language to further your agenda all so you can get a little extra money while using kids in your chess game to destroy a noble profession and democratic institution. …welll,……yeah, you might want to sit down, rethink your life and figure out how you can regain your soul.
The truth will set you free. Everything else is bondage….”
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Maybe some other similar folks in other states will step down too.
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Does she have grandkids and, if so, did they go to the schools whose policies she instituted?
If not…
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This woman harms tens of thousands of students while repeatedly insulting the integrity of the teachers who care for them. And, then the Times gives her yet another opportunity to whine and promote her self-serving opinions. Actually, “two interviews in recent weeks” I guess what she had to say was so profound that you had to go back for more?
Where was the so-called “paper of record” when the Common Core poop storm first came raining down? Why wasn’t the Times reporting more about what real teachers and administrators and parents were saying then? Even now, your editors seem to have a difficult time getting beyond listening to the alleged “leaders” and “spokesmen” in education.
Hey, New York Times….Tisch’s failure is your newspaper’s failure, too.
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“The New York Times”
“All the news that’s counterfeit
To print” is what you’ll find in it
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SomeDAM Poet: love your work. You just made my morning.
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““If anything, I fault myself for being ambitious for every child,” she said.”
Like a criminal who can’t admit wrongdoing.
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“Meryl Tisch’s VAMbitions”
I really was VAMbitious
For every single child
For VAMpire State ambitious
The testing drove me wild
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“Tischian VAMbition”
The policy of Tischian
Was VAMpire testing flood
She really had VAMbition
To suck the teacher blood
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If Tisch had moral fiber, she would expose the profit making objectives of the
self-anointed, oligarch “reformers” and, she would attend the Democracy Awakening rally in D.C., in April.
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MH ~ your anger and frustration alpears to suggest that you have experienced a student who did not reach mastery in numerous areas of study, and you blame teachers for this. The truth of our mandated and force-fed CCSS ToxicTesting curriculum, is a new concept per minute, review and test requirements…or the teacher gets fired, leaves millions of children behind. We are driven by billionaires and politicians whose Billions depend on more Billions.
Many of our children, most of them, have little or no time to reach mastery. Nightly meltdowns and parents who are not able to help – no texts, CCSS Math crap, etc. They are frustrated, sad, hopeless and hate school every day.
MH – the educators on this Blog share your frustration and we are doing all we can to shine bright lights on this Billionaire funded Malpractice.
MANY Bright students struggle, students with disabilities are permanently lost and ELL kids may be giving up. Years of this Malpractice leave us where we are now. Add to that the Brain-drain of highly trained teachers who are fired and leaving the systems, only to be replaced by TFA-types who want to end world hunger, cure cancer and achieve world peace in 2 years.
Good luck!
If they would just wash their own laundry while living with mom and dad…that would help some.
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Yes, the reformers mandate much malpractice.
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I word for Merryl “shill”.
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MH; I can tell you I was one of those unteachable children in foster care. Another frequent poster here, Lloyd Lofthouse, had a similar upbringing. While I can not speak for him, Our experience is that the school could not have helped us until we were ready to be helped. Fortunately the door to higher education did not depend on a test and was always open to us later in life when we were ready. Your site featured an article showing many unemployed Americans have only a high school diploma. So what, most jobs do not require a college degree. What is is you want? More testing that will keep more kids from graduating? After my first career I became a teacher. I have an M.A. in linguistics I work with our lowest readers on my time because the curriculum does not allow me to do what my professional training tells me will work. I am at school until 5:30 every night working with a small group of now emerging readers doing what needs to be done. I do not ask for pay or anything except for the parents to spend half an hour doing phonics drills with their children to support what I am doing. I also will see these kids four days a week this summer at the community center to continue. I can do this because I make enough to pay my bills and do not need a second job to make ends meet. I sympathize with you, but you have got to understand that the schools can not fix everything, current expectations are unrealistic. I hope the school can be of more help to them, perhaps you can help them. I assure you most charter schools will not help you. Your site has some interesting articles concerning dyslexia, something teachers should have more professional development on, instead of testing. Maybe we could drop some reform and try to do something truly useful and helpful?
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One more note MH, under current guidelines it is very difficult to get special education services for a child, and proposed changes will lead to even fewer services. Teachers do not determine eligibility, administrators and bureaucrats do. You are putting the blame in the wrong place. Many of us offer what help we can, others are working extra jobs! Yes, your child probably did need special education, I can tell you our district is phasing out as many services as possible, administrators here in my district do not believe that learning disabilities are real, they put the kids in class under the guise of mainstreaming and contend that the children just need more rigor. This is over the objection of the teachers, and we hope the law suits fly.
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@MH, please get a grip. Success in college is pretty much tied to income and involvement of parents. My husband (a former militaryl officer, businessman, and now a Columbia PhD) teaches at a very successful high school where the kids whose parents are doctors and lawyers predictably attend Harvard and other selective schools. The upper income parents have money for international travel and SAT tutoring. Kids whose parents are further down on the socioeconomic scale join the military or work after graduation. Many of my husband’s less successful students simply do not complete their work or prepare for tests adequately. He offers extra help during his free periods and after school. He is at school early every morning (thanks to his military training) for extra help as well. Did your children do all of their homework every night? Did they try to get extra help when they needed it? Did you read to your children from the time they were very young and visit the library with them? I am not wealthy but I did all of these things. Some parents unfortunately do not spend time doing these things either because they are not important to them or they don’t know better. So if your child is having trouble in a public college or university, is it really the fault of their K-12 teachers? What is your role?
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Oh I get it. MH is complaining about dyslexia? My God. That is highly treatable. Try raising a child with autism. There is NO treatment and NO cure. There is little hope and people can be very cruel. You are very alone. After school ends, there are no supports. At least MH’s child is only lacking a few skills. My child will be dependent all his life. I constantly work with much, much worse situations. I lose students yearly to terminal illness, drugs, crime, and sometimes suicide. I have students who struggle to breath, are going blind, or bravely deal with personality disorders. I don’t go around blaming teachers. This MH person is a big reason so many good teachers are leaving.
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Dyslexia was only one of the issues MH’s child may face. (I am guessing from a distance, which is really unfair and unprofessional on my part.) In any case, dyslexia does not manifest in the same way or degree in every child. Just like there is a continuum for autism, the same can be said for dyslexia. While we know more about how to remediate reading disabilities, there is no magic bullet.
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MH: “I would suggest for teachers to go back to school and be informed about Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Dyscalculia . . . .”
It’s really too bad that you let your anger over your personal situation over-shadow this very important point. Turning a blind eye to dyslexia is one of the dirty little secrets of the public school system. Dyslexia is a disorder that affects about 20% of the students we teach; it has a vey direct effect on school achievement, yet it is almost completely ignored by administrators, and most teachers can plead ignorance. Screening is complex and expensive; though not an excuse for ignoring dyslexia, it is an (unacceptable) explanation. Identifying the signs of possible dyslexia are not difficult given proper training, however whenever I mention it, administrations treats me as if I am speaking a different language that they do not want to understand. Given all the money wasted on ELA and math testing, it is upsetting to think just how many “failures” are the result of undiagnosed and untreated dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia. This remains one of the great failures of our education system and I’m sure that it will continued to be ignored.
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State policy NY indicates that students with a disability take the exam at the grade level they are in, not their instructional level. So a student reading at a 4th grade level in 8th grade would take the ELA test for 8th grade. The student cannot have their test read because it would alter the construct being measured. If they can’t read it, what is it actually measuring? Guessing ability? Yet schools are marked with designations and labels due to this act in stupidity. Someone needs to challenge this bogus policy.
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Not Tisch’s fault. Excuses that displace fault, are endemic among the richest 0.1%.
It wasn’t the fault of the former CEO of Centerplate, that he couldn’t control his anger. It was the fault of the dog that he abused. It wasn’t the fault of the former CEO of JCPenney, that sales plummeted. It was the fault of the customers’ for rejecting a botched concept.
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Tisch is just the tip of the iceberg. She’s the very public face of the new Know-It-All class that has energed over the last several years. They seem intent on serving up all of their spectacular talent which, in truth, is more vapor than substance.
These are people who … for many complicated reasons … cannot stay in their own lanes. They have a compulsive desire to impose their myopic views on vast swaths of this society as though it is their blessed and necessary crusade.
I have no idea when these strange ephiphanies took place … and why they think they are singled out for such grand service to us all, but I wish to hell it would stop.
Ms. Tisch has created more turmoil in the New York educational system than anyone in history. Her tenure has nearly dismantled a system that, while flawed, has created some of the very finest school districts in the entire country.
There will always be schools in need of repair. Ms. Tisch’s vision would not allow her to differentiate between those in distress and those in good standing. So, she visited her incompetence on both.
The sad truth is that Ms. Tisch is a racial coward. She was shackled by political correctness … and that was a damn shame. Had she become the educational wizard she imagined herself to be, she would have directed the overwhelming resouces to the schools that needed them the most … and those schools were mostly brown and black schools. Schools of the inner cities and a few beyond.
But Ms. Tisch … and her Regents’ cohorts went as large as they could … and in doing so, they shortchanged the very schools and the very children that so needed the extra attention. Now … now we have the same gaps … the same chasms … as before. Only the metrics have changed, but the misery remains.
Ms. Tisch’s distain for parents and their legitmate concerns also gave birth to the nation’s most energetic opt-out movement … a movement now being replicated throughout the country. That is a helluva legacy that Ms. Tisch can tack to some favorite wall.
Her devotion to Common Core was greater than her devotion to children. Her arrogance smothered the sound advice of seasoned teachers. Her disconnect from the everyday classroom doomed her to a small orbit comprised mostly of nodding heads. By the time of her leaving she had become the symbol of all that was wrong with the sloppy reform.
In her wake is educational debris for as far as the eye can see. Broken curricula, torturing tests, anxiety-ladened classrooms, and parents seething that childhood has been so hijacked by such clueless frauds.
This is our lot in this moment … to be scorched by know-it-alls who have decided to upend the lives of millions because they have a vision of certain specialness … and we … we have no such magic at all. God us help us.
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