Marla Kilfoyle is a teacher in Long Island and executive director of the BATS. She has endless energy in the struggle to improve our schools for all children.
She created this short video, which explains why you should opt out in 2016. Marla calls it “Don’t Back Down.”
This video and many others are a tribute to the power of social media to spread messages of support and hope to parents and teachers who want what is best for children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Expect an attempt in New York State to strip Dr. Betty Rosa of her elected powers. We’ve seen this happen in other states and cities, and there is no reason not to expect it to happen in NY.
Stripping anyone who stands in the way of the corporate public education demolition derby is another tactic the dark side is using in this war on our teachers, children and parents.
Andrew Cuomo is in survival mode. The former teacher basher and monopoly buster has changed his stripes in order to try to salvage his political career. He will not undermine Dr. Rosa simply because it is not in his best interest. Playing the anti-democrat, anti-progressive was a FAIL. Cuomo may be a vindictive and arrogant bully, but he was not willing to commit political suicide by continuing to anger the parents of NY. And now the new ESSA allows him to get off the hook as he bows to the will of the people and saves a little face in the bargain.
For those of you who know and read what I write about all ‘this’ I want to explain what just happened in my life, because I have a rather long post that I think is important!
It pertains to the conversation about the RIGHTS of a teacher to express her expert opinion about MANY THINGS, not merely a valueless assessment tool.
The LARGER ISSUE behind THIS, is the right OF the professional -practitioner, WHO IS ALSO AN AMERICAN WITH CIVIL RIGHTS — to defend ANYTHING, in including false allegations.
Lenny Isenberg called me yesterday. I have never met him, but know him for a decade AFTER he contacted me to invite me to write at his site. He explained that he was creating a site where all teachers can talk about and learn what is happening. (I think he envisioned a site like this one.. IT DID NOT DO THIS TASK, even as he laid out the process of social promotion that was the way it was, and even after hundreds of posts that offered the chronicle of abuse and corruption in LAUSD.
After a decade of fighting, and chronicling in erudite detail how LAUSD fabricated charges and emptied the schools of thousands of teachers, literally charging and firing them with impunity, he would often call me to decry how nobody is listening.
After 800 articles to explain how teachers need to STEP UP & STOP the abuse, he pleaded with me, in his eloquent, passionate, manner to join with him to create an organization where teachers could contribute money to where they all could TELL WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THEM OUT THERE, and to let the public know the abuses teachers face, and which the unions and the media are ignoring!
He imagined indemnifying the organization, by hiring and paying for powerful legal advice, and giving teachers a legal vehicle to fight the lies. “We need to find great legal minds who want to save our schools. The teachers need a VOICE! IT AINT’ GONNA BE HILLARY OR EVEN BERNIE, who will break the silence and stop this repression
My writing impressed him, as it did Karen Horwitz http://endteacherabuse.org/ who had just written this to me, ” Susan, You are so brilliant and so on point on this issue. I appreciate that and want it to remain as such! We have no idea where any of this will go, but i will continue to move forward as efficiently as I can since our obstacles are way too big to do otherwise. You have always worked at this for the greater cause and not just about your issue, which was huge to you as anyone who had a similar issue would understand. Unfortunately, you are a rare bird. ”
OY! I am 75 years old, and facing the tribulations that we all face.
I cannot join him to break the hidden wall of abuse, but there are others who can.
I write and tie it all together, all the abuse in the 15,880 districts.
That is what I do. Writing is what I ‘taught’ –enabling kids to put their thoughts on paper, to get it down. Lenny got it down, and today, he wrote this, below— I could just give you the link http://www.perdaily.com/2016/03/top-of-the-salary-scale.html
But you should read this, because what a teacher can and cannot do has been written by the EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX and ALECBroad, Gates, Walton, Pearson… KOCH
Here from the latest Perdaily post, which I will re-post at OPED, is LENNY ISENBERG
“Every week for the last 5 years I have been contacted by what seems to be a neverending parade of targeted senior teachers at the top of the salary scale that make up 93% of teachers being charged and subsequently removed from their careers at LAUSD. They all tell with minor variations the same story: They are being hit with fabricated morals charges or inflammatory allegations of being racist for doing something as mundane as teaching about race in the context of the civil rights movement in a Social Studies class.
“They all describe the open collusion of UTLA from chapter chairs on upwards with LAUSD against them in a process that presumes them guilty without UTLA doing anything to come to their aid. The only teachers UTLA has ever defended are those within the UTLA “power” structure. Just ask Alex Caputo Pearl who was targeted when he was at Crenshaw High School and very atypically had the union successfully come to his defense.
“What all these teachers describe as being”unfairly targeted by an administrator” equals the LAUSD administrative process of building a file of fabricated “evidence” and charges to ultimately seek your firing or forced early retirement in a process that will save LAUSD approximately $60,000 in just the first year after they have gotten rid of you. And it is worth noting that LAUSD makes no attempt to hide just how disingenuous this process is, since the files of many of these targeted teachers have literally the same paragraphs in them that have obviously been cut and pasted from a script- I even have a copy of the script that was mistakenly put into some correspondence with a targeted teacher. But a targeted teacher without a job or benefits is unable to engage an attorney to defend themselves in the long and purposefully protracted process of fighting back. Maybe that’s why they were in a union.
“Even when it comes to displaced teachers, many of whom have been displaced without taking account of their actual hiring date seniority and while leaving teachers with emergency credentials still in place in many cases, the goal of LAUSD seems clear. Once displaced, it is virtually impossible to get a fixed position, because clearly LAUSD administrators are being told not to give them to displaced teachers, so that after 3 years they can be fired as employees at will and no longer tenured teachers for having failed to get a regular post.
“What follows is a typical email I just received that hits on many of the factors leading to losing ones position at LAUSD. Are teachers so passive as a group that they will continue to do nothing, while their ranks of senior teachers continue to be decimated by an LAUSD/UTLA open conspiracy that makes no attempt to hide what it is doing?
While no one teacher can stand against these criminals, it occurs to me that a concerned and well organized action brought and paid for by the literally thousands of teachers who have already lost their careers might finally bring this criminal conspiracy into the public’s awareness. Get in touch if you are interested in doing something.:”
THE EMAILS SAYS:
” ‘I have been teaching for 20 years now. I am at a school where I am being unfairly targeted by an administrator. The job is hard enough but when you have administrators writing you up for teaching kids the difference between racism, prejudice, and stereotypes it can be impossible. When it comes to UTLA I am starting to see why some teachers are frustated. Some chapter chairs are in bed with the administration and I wish there would be more push back from the union. Teachers are afraid to talk to each other or to speak. It’s really sad to see. The raise was nice but a lot of the teacher harassment is still going on, especially for teachers who are brave enough to speak out. Finally there are also teachers out there who are willing to snitch on their own colleagues for brownie points with their administrators.
‘I am also a displaced teacher. I am wondering if other displaced teachers are getting the same treatment from their administrators at other schools. Part of the bargaining agreement UTLA had with LAUSD was to place the displaced teachers at schools. I believe that displaced teachers may be labeled as being not effective in the classroom. That is not the case. I’m just wondering if displaced teachers have been unfairly targeted this year since this is the first year of the agreement. ‘ ”
I, SUSAN, say this, go to Perdaily.com and read ten years of reporting abuses that make this ‘opt-out’ mandate resonate.
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/06/lausds-treacherous-road-from-reed-to-vergara–its-never-been-about-students-just-money.html
California Education Researchers at CARE-ED Sign Statement Calling for Moratorium on High-Stakes Testing, SBAC
It is great to hear someone encouraging the Opt Out movement. However, it also brings forward the issues associated with opting out. Some parents particularly those who may be lower income may not have access to the information that informs them that they are able to opt their children out of standardized testing. In addition, these same families may not have someone who can stay home with their children on the days they were supposed to be testing. The solution that I see to the problem of standardized testing is to make them less intense, tests we are giving to students shouldn’t be so stressful that parents are forced to pull their children out of them. We need to improve or eliminate testing as we know it so that ALL students have opportunity to thrive in school without the anxiety and stress associated with standardized testing.
sydney, the children don’t have to stay home when they go to school. Where school officials are responsive, the children go to the school library or the auditorium and read quietly or do school work. When school officials are not responsive, they are supposed to “sit and stare.” I suggest sending them with a favorite book to read if the school won’t provide it
After watching Kilfoyle’s video, I followed a link to another video – “NYS Test Refusals Hits Main Street” that suggested that rather than using the phrase “Opt Out”, parents should “Refuse” to allow their children to take the Grades 3- 8 ELA, math and science tests and that it can be done without penalty to either student or teacher.
The video is one of the clever rapid-marker on white board variety.
(NYS Allies for Public Education)