Rhode Island teacher Shelley McDonald resigned from her position before the school board of North Kingston fired her. She is a woman of conscience. I name her to the blog’s honor roll for standing up for principle.
Facing termination from the North Kingstown School Department because of her refusal to administer testing last fall, high school math teacher Shelley McDonald has decided to resign. Her decision, accepted by the school committee at its June 28 meeting, comes after a long fight with school administration on testing which she felt, if she consented to give the tests to students, had the potential to violate her privacy.
“I chose to resign because I just no longer had the energy, the support, nor the finances to fight what clearly looked to me like an unwinnable situation,” she said on Wednesday.
This past February, McDonald went before the school committee because of her refusal to administer PARCC tests to students in March and December 2015. She has been a long-time opponent of the school’s installation of wifi in classrooms, citing health concerns with electro-magnetic radiation created by the technology at numerous committee meetings over the past two years.
She had also claimed that the terms and conditions of the test’s publisher, Pearson, Inc., include the potential release of personal information, such as social security numbers, to unknown third-party groups, something to which she did not want to agree.
A memorandum of agreement was drawn up between the school department and the North Kingstown teacher’s union which stated that only very specific items of personal information, such as the teacher’s name and district email address, would be accessible by Pearson. The MOA added that teachers would be held ‘harmless’ in administering the test unless in cases of ‘gross negligence.’
Superintendent Philip Auger declined to comment specifically on McDonald’s resignation. He has been adamant throughout the ordeal that McDonald’s termination was decided because of her insubordination in administering the tests when no other teacher held such opposition, not her repeated claims that wifi was potentially harmful to students.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I don’t know of any jobs where employees can pick and choose which parts of the job they want to do and expect to stay employed.
I’m sympathetic to anyone who feels they have to quit a job, but what honor roll worthy principle is she standing up for? Protecting herself from a private privacy concern or her students from radio waves?
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Professional ethics dictate that if I am told to institute educational malpractices, such as is standardized testing, it is my obligation to not implement them. From Ch. 8 of my forthcoming book “Infidelity to Truth: Educational Malpractice in Public Education”:
Ethics in regard to students and towards practices and performance, are the two categories that interest us and warrant further commentary along with a quick caveat about ethics toward the profession of teaching itself. Obviously teachers’ main ethical concern should primarily be directed toward the student as noted by the American Association of Educators (AAE) code: “The professional educator deals considerately and justly with each student, and seeks to resolve problems, including
discipline, according to law and school policy” (What happens when “law and school policy” actually hinder those dealings as hinted at in the following statement?) and “the professional educator makes a constructive effort to protect the student from conditions detrimental to learning, health, or safety.” Or from the NEA code: “the educator shall make reasonable effort to protect the student from conditions harmful to learning or to health and safety.”
Obviously Ms. McDonald believed that she was making a “reasonable effort to protect the student from conditions harmful to learning or to health and safety”.
I would have added that since any test results are completely invalid as per Wilson’s critique and that using those results harm some students it is unethical to administer the tests.
Is McDonald able to read, review and know what is on the test? If not then she is also asking to breach professional ethics by being mandated to implement something she cannot professionally vet herself.
And that is wrong, dead wrong.
It’s the administrators who should be losing their jobs for demanding teachers perform unethical duties.
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Correction:
If not then she is also BEING ASKED (not asking) to breach professional ethics by being mandated to implement something she cannot professionally vet herself.
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Employees can refuse unethical or illegal practices, but they can be fired. It is why ALL of working America should have due process. People think due process protects just teachers. I know corporate America. Without due process, employees must submit to harassment, discrimination, and other questionable acts. Or they can quit and be blackballed into financial ruin. Employers have far too much power and the system is rigged.
Now translate to a classroom and in loco parentis. If teachers must make a decision between protecting someone else’s child or their own family’s financial hardship, which will they choose? Corporate whistleblowers without due process are not treated well and the outcomes are rarely good. When the Gulen teachers in Ohio stood up to very disturbing behavior in their schools, it was the political machine, including ODE, that attacked the teachers. Due process protects students.
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I too have had concerns about both student and personal privacy. She is not alone in this issue. One concern is the use of technology and the continuous tracking of student data through these devices. We use a few computer enhanced programs in which student responses are used to determine what the student sees next. Who owns and uses this data?
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But as written above at least, neither of the issues that Duane and Firstgrademonkey raised seem to be the objections of this teacher.
As for the responsibility to stand up to injustices, there are certainly times when that is appropriate, and some issues where it is a moral imperative. Each person gets to make up their own mind about what they strongly enough about to warrant that.
But, the point is that you should feel strongly enough about it to lose your job, because substituting your judgment for your employers is not doing your job and will likely result in getting fired.
I think the Wi-Fi thing is a good example. She obviously feels strongly about this topic and has raised it repeatedly in public forums with no action. Obviously, most people disagree with her, and the collective decision has been that it isn’t a problem.
If she can’t live with that, continued employment there makes no sense for her or her employer.
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“. . . because substituting your judgment for your employers is not doing your job and will likely result in getting fired.”
Quite correct the second half of that statement, John!
There are a couple of ways of looking at standing up to the “judgement (of) your employers.”
One is the Good German school of thought: “I was just doing my job the best way I was being told to do.” And that way of thinking was debunked as an excuse at Nuremburg.
The other way to look at not “substituting your judgment for your employers” is form a control fraud. William Black, who prosecuted over a thousand fraudsters from the Savings and Loan debacle in the 80s, coined the term and also expanded it to include not just the individuals at the top but the complete organizational players who contribute to that fraud. (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_fraud)
In my mind both the Good German and control fraud come into play in instituting educational malpractices such as standardized testing in that the malpractice itself is based on fraudulent claims of validity and the results of those malpractices are fraudulently imposed upon the innocent, the students.
So that Ms. McDonald was rightly and ethically standing up against the “Good German Fraudsters” who institute practices that are proven harmful to some students.
John, your defense of “all things great” as determined by employers exudes intellectual laxity and is nothing more than blind obedience to powers that be. It is a slave mentality or conversely a slave master’s attitude.
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It doesn’t take much study to be convinced that long-term exposure to Wi-Fi in primary school is harmful to students.
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I have met Shelley personally, and greatly admire her perseverance and her courage. Shelley has had concerns about the privacy of the student and teacher data being handed off to Pear$on with the PARCC. These are reasonable concerns, despite the facile assurances that education officials give. It is a terrible shame that she has had to resign under these circumstances. The larger issue that Shelley has brought to the attention of the public is the health of the students when bombarded with incessant wifi radiation, which is now more and more a feature of “innovative” digital “learning.” Even leaving aside the quality of the materials, the potential for short-term and long-term damage from this radiation is real. There are many scientific studies that warn of the dangers. Those who are rushing ahead with the ed tech/digital agenda in education do not want to be made aware of the dangers. Who will pay the price when the illnesses can no longer be denied? See http://safetechforschoolsmaryland.blogspot.com/ for a start to understanding what is at stake.
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Worry is a waste of human imagination. Please read the suggested article. Trust the laws of physics instead of clinging to irrational fear.
You’ll sleep better. Cheers.
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Suggested reading. Article explains why low frequency, non-ionizing (KHz, MHz, GHz ranges), radio frequencies pose no threat to human health. This includes WLAN Wi-Fi frequencies in the single giga hertz range. I hope its not too late to rescind your resignation.
http://www.howtogeek.com/234817/dont-worry-wi-fi-isnt-dangerous/
Sample:
You’ll find no shortage of articles on the dangers of just about anything if you look around the Internet. Articles about how dangerous modern medicines are, how dangerous cell phones are, how dangerous cooking your food in a microwave is, and yes, how dangerous Wi-Fi is. People claim that Wi-Fi routers keep them awake at night, cause cancer, cause hyperactivity in children, and all manner of unsupported and nonsensical claims.
Want an official word on the matter? The World Health Organization, which tends to err on the side of caution before outright dismissing something as toxic, carcinogenic, or otherwise harmful, is very clear that there is no health risk from radio-frequency communication devices. (Their briefing on the matter is actually a great read that highlights how low the risk is and how even people in Wi-Fi dense locations like schools and hospitals are exposed to radio-frequency radiation at thousands of times lower than international safety standards designed to protect individuals working in related industries).
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http://www.radiationeducation.com
Note: Update from WHO
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