A Florida judge supported parents who fought for alternatives to the mandatory state reading test. Some districts permitted alternatives, others insisted that children would be retained in third grade if they didn’t take and pass the third grade test.
“A Leon County circuit court judge has come down in favor of families challenging Florida’s third-grade retention practices, ruling that school districts ignored the children’s right to alternative forms of promotion and the state Department of Education allowed that to happen.
“In her order, Judge Karen Gievers highly criticized the Hernando County school district for its “illegal refusal” to allow students to have a portfolio option to demonstrate their reading abilities, as permitted in statute. Notably, she also included report cards “based on classroom work throughout the course of the school year” as an acceptable option.
“Gievers took a further step in undercutting Florida’s long-time reliance on testing by validating the Opt Out Network’s use of “minimal participation.”
“The statute does not define participation,” Gievers wrote in her order. “The children were present on time, broke the seal on the materials and wrote their names, thus meeting their obligation to participate.”
The article calls this a “mixed” ruling, but I think it looks like a home run for parents who didn’t want their child’s future to be tied to one standardized test.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is great. Enough of the Endless Testing Regime. Enough of the privatization of public schools. Enough of the transfer of tax dollars to private corporations and testing companies. Enough with demonizing public schools and teachers. Enough with tilting the playing field toward the charter industry.
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This is great news but I wonder if it applies to the whole state or only the counties in this Circuit Court’s jurisdiction; namely, Franklin, Gadsden, Jefferson, Leon, Liberty, and Wakulla? There may be one more step to make it apply to all 52 county school districts.
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As of today any third grader can be promoted with a portfolio or report card, if there is no notification of a reading deficiency. This holds unless a stay is granted with an appeal.
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How long is it going to take before people really understand what assessment should be about and that standardized testing never should be used to make consequential decisions about a child’s education or, for that matter, be used to rate teachers or schools?
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Take.That.Jeb.Bush.A whole new meaning to no child left behind.
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TAGO, apropos, and bravo.
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Some good news in this educational nightmare that we live with!! They better move those kids into the 4th grade FAST.
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Let’s hope this decision will be expanded throughout the state. In other good news, ITT Tech can no longer accept students that receive federal aid. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-itt-tech-aid-20160826-snap-story.html
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It is statewide. Without a reading deficiency a student may not be retained.
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Wonderful ruling! I’m hoping that my daughter can enjoy learning in third grade in Florida, rather than be crushed by supposed state mandates.
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I don’t know how the Tampa Bay Times operates, but it always seems to me that when investigative reporter Howard Blume writes an article for the Los Angeles Times, the charter scam and high stakes test loving editorial board adds a misleading headline. There was nothing mixed about this ruling. This was a proper installation of justice completely outlawing the predatory practices of personal, human data mongers. Cheers to the Court.
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It’s time for citizens to carry “grade cards” with the names of Bill Gates, the Walton’s, the Broad’s, and all those “wizard governors and legislators” such as Cuomo and Christie.
A grade card with the letter “F”, each one identifying a different “attack” against a public school in their state, a withholding of funds, a closure, the unlawful firing of teachers, or a Common Core mathematical “tongue-twisted mutation”, or even a line or two of the mockery of literature classics.
Or perhaps simply grade cards, that say “I’m not a score, but…a human being”
Our Constitution still provides, at my last check, the freedom of speech and expression.
It would be a privilege to read a card to Mr Cuomo…detailing one of his many destructive actions against public education…and politely but publicly tell him that all he is worth is an “F”.
The depths of shame that they will sink to are both shocking and mind boggling…what kind of a human being would take money, and enact policy…at the expense of a child?
Only the lowest form of humanity…certainly one deserving to experience the wrath of Dante’s Inferno.
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There is no virtue in making children so brave that they might withstand the idiocy of adults. Nor is there any virtue in lying to children so as to protect adult ridiculousness. And when adults trip over their own commandments and reason away the subtle wounding of children … then they themselves have committed a great sin.
This is a mess that cannot be unmessed. When will we start over … and get this straight?
Is this how children should ever be treated? Are there not school campaigns to disarm bullies … and to champion kindness? Have those champions vanished? Were those just paper heroics? Empty nonsense? I sense adult ugliness seeping through a holy firewall behind which childhood is protected. It seems too many are now comfortable liars … even with children. And worse, some have become hypocrites.
There is never an excuse to scar a child. And if you’re in the child business … that sort of action condemns you to a special sort of hell.
For children, school is a near shrine where every minute should be crammed with as much wonder as a minute might hold. To disturb that atmosphere is to violate the inviolate,
A school has no place or space for anyone unable to plug into their memory bank for recollections of their own childhood. If one cannot stay linked with the memories of their own past, perhaps they shouldn’t be in the memory-making business at all.
Denis Ian
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Excellent commentary Denis!
It is why I cannot congratulate the Johnny Come Lately Administrators that appear to be against these malpractices all the while they are implementing them.
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This is wonderful news, and one should take everything one can get and earn to push back against this horrible, democracy-destroying reform movement.
However, Americans’ fight is far from over, but they should use this and the recent SCOTUS’s decision NOT to hear the Vergara case as inspiration and motivation to continue to fight 15 times harder and put these awful greedy capitalist swine in their place.
America is a threat to the rest of the world in terms of spreading its capitalist style ideas and free market solutions to replace guaranteed arrays of services that the taxpayer and government should provide. America certainly is not alone in doing this, as this is a global movement.
I am convinced that Bloomberg owning a flat in London has facilitated the acceleration of Britain following America’s efforts to destroy public education with test based accountability. Bloomberg has no language barrier there, and has likely hosted many dinner parties with executives from Pearson as just some of the guest list.
But I think Americans have excellent potential and are just warming up! More power to them.
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Bloomberg’s dinner parties at times brought him together with many who have a penchant for power and prestige. A few years ago, he had the “pleasure” to have cocktails with Kathy Black…and the conversation turned toward the chancellorship of public education in New York… Mr Bloomberg and Ms Black must have been tickled to extreme in their conversation, as he was so moved by her, he “made” her the chancellor of the New York City public school system, in charge of 1.1 million children.
Ms Black proved to be one of the least qualified people to hold this position, and made a comment to the effect that birth control could solve many problems facing the public.
“Sir” Michael Bloomberg…a disgrace to the people of New York…
$40 billion can buy a lot of things, but for Mr Bloomberg, the respect of the people of this great city is not an option.
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Reblogged this on Matthews' Blog.
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The US Department of Education finally posted John King’s speech from a charter promotion conference way back in June:
http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/leading-way
Read this speech and compare it to Duncan and King’s speeches to public school audiences.
It is remarkable how biased the Obama Administration is regarding charter schools.
Public schools haven’t done real well under ed reform leadership at the federal and state level – on a lot of measures they’re in worse shape than they were the day President Obama took office- and when you read ed reform sites (like the US Department of Education) you start to understand why. They simply prefer privatized systems in DC.
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Today’s ed reform echo chamber award goes to The 74:
Read what their social media team promotes and compare. The overwhelming majority of public school coverage is gloom and doom. The charter coverage is 100% positive up to and including promoting a book that cheerleads “charter founders”.
These are the people with special access to lawmakers. Great, huh? Maybe individual public school districts in unfashionable states can hire a marketing team and send them to DC. We’ll have another fundraiser.
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“Thank you, Senator Landrieu, for that warm introduction. It’s a great honor to be with you as we celebrate all that’s been accomplished in the quarter century since the first charter school law was passed in Minnesota.”
Not that it would surprise a single voter or member of the public, but when Senator Landrieu lost her Senate seat she was immediately gifted with a private sector position promoting privatization.
“Former Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., has a new gig. She’s signed on as a paid “strategic adviser” for the Walton Family Foundation.”
Now she can lobby her former co-workers in DC on behalf of the Walton heirs. As if the Walton heirs didn’t have enough clout in the Senate and the US Department of Education, right? Now they purchased a former Senator outright.
How do people who aren’t billionaires get special access like that? I know I can’t afford to buy a Senator. I don’t know a single person who can- the wealthiest people in this county can’t come near Walton levels of power.
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/04/former_sen_mary_landrieu_is_no.html
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
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Finally some people are recognizing how important parents are in the education of their children. Children’s first grade reading achievement depends most of all on how much they know about reading before they get to school… The differences in reading potential are shown not to be strongly related to poverty, handedness, dialect, gender, IQ, mental age, or any other such difficult-to-alter circumstances. They are due instead to learning and experience – and specifically to learning and experience with print and print concepts.” Marilyn Adams Beginning to Read. Thinking and learning about Print pp 494
Equal the playing field; if everyone was born with a silver spoon in his/her hand standardized tests would reflect an achievement gap. No two children learn alike plus real learning isn’t found in direct teaching, drilling and memorizing facts.
“Most kids don’t really understand. Children need to be able to apply what they have learned appropriately to a new situation. They need to be able to make use of the knowledge they have acquired. Understanding is not knowing a little bit about many different things. There is a problem with knowing facts but not understand the framework and the discipline needed to discover or to apply them. You can’t memorize facts to any purpose.” Howard Garden TC Today, Spring 1999”
But application is not mentioned in the Standards. Poverty nor inner city violence aren’t the cause for the achievement gap. Even though these factors are important -no body argues that they don’t play a part but the most important is being read to. We have to blame the politicians because they are imposing Standards that curtail the creative, knowledgeable teachers from real teaching. They, furthermore are imposing meaningless standardized testing that steal learning time. If the politicians took the money wasted on Standardized testing and gave that money to community groups who are working to put books into the hands of children and meet with their parents about literacy and all that it entails, the achievement gap would narrow.
If you gave teacher back their teaching time instead of forcing a drill and practice for the “Beast”, the teachers would have time to read real literature to their students and learn through the imagination and application far more worthwhile higher order thinking skills.
Throughout history mankind has been plagued with good and evil, violence, hunger- poverty. That is not an excuse for a lack of literacy. From Abraham Lincoln to Ben Carson we have had leaders and intellectuals rise up out of poverty. What did those two have in common: a love of reading. Well, Dr. Carson may not have wanted to read but his illiterate mother mandated a weekly book report from him and his brother even though she couldn’t read- her sons didn’t know that .
“Thorndike, after studying reading comprehension in 15 countries, discovered two conditions that prevailed in strong readers. All had been read to from an early age and had come from homes that respected education.” Rdg. Teacher March 1989
As we have heard so often, it is the positive attitude of parents and caregivers which had the biggest influence on children. Attitudes anchored in the home are at the root of children working up to their potential. If all parents/caregivers take an interest in the development of their children’s cognitive skills; realized how important it is to read to their children; provided creative play; engaged in conversation; and provided numerous cognitive experiences, more children would be working up to their potential. There would be less of an achievement gap.
Some parent/caregivers need to be shown how to care and work with their children through their various developmental stages before their children begin formal education. This is the goal of a program call PAT- Parents as Teachers. In some areas it is called Home Visiting Evidence of Effectiveness
Concerned citizens must rise up and take action just like Jeanette Deutermann in leading the Opt Out movement. But we need to take different action to develop literacy. We need to get parents involved but for a different reason: to read to their children. Don’t give me the excuse that some parents can’t read. Parents who can’t read can tell a story via a picture book- the pictures tell the story. They can’t read English; they should read in their native language.
There are countless read-along-sets of great literature, read by professional readers which can be borrowed from the library, purchased, or viewed via the Internet. (Research has shown that the children who listen repeatedly to recorded stories as they follow the text and then read along until they sound like the story teller make made great gains in fluency and comprehension.)
Many libraries now have available the “Nook” and the “Kindle” which the libraries loan out. They display the text and pictures. The reader can read it independently or they can listen to it being read. The Nook even provides the option to record the child reading of the story.
Our public libraries are phenomenal for providing for all the children’s needs: play, books, videos, CDs, computers, play area inside and out; writing center, reading centers ….interacting with nature outside in an enclosed area- everything from music, to water art, water fall, digging and planting….The public library has so much available to enhance literacy on all levels but some parents/caregivers cannot or choose not to take advantage of the public library; some have valid reasons.
There are numerous resources could be made available if the govt. stopped wasting its money on standardized testing and used that money to support the following recourses:
-National Center for Family & Community Connections with Schools
-Teach More/Love More. http://www.teachmorelovemore.org/AboutUs.asp
-MOPS: Mothers Of Preschoolers.
-County of San Diego/Books-by-Mail Program
-Mobile Libraries/ Book Mobile
(Boy, 9, Creates Library in His Front Yard. City, Stupid, Shuts it Down)
-Book Sales at Public Library
-Book Fairs at school – not as a fund raiser but as a “two-for-one” sale for the purpose of getting books into the homes.
-Online Books- electronic books
-Hollis teen builds bookshelves, donates books to Nashua shelter for women, children8“…Michaela also made hardwood bookshelves and filled them with books for preschoolers and then led craft sessions….”
-Offsite book shelves encourage reading Talk, Sing, Read, Write, Play: How Libraries Reach Kids Before They Can Read http://www.npr.org/2014/12/30/373783189/talk-sing-read-write-play-how-libraries-reach-kids-before-they-can-read
-Scouts earn award for community service http://www.cabinet.com/hollisbrooklinejournal/hollisreadersubmitted/986194-308/scouts-earn-award-for-community-service.html
-A Door-to-Door Push to Get Parents Involved at Struggling Schools 8/8/15 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/09/nyregion/a-door-to-door-push-to-get-parents-involved-at-struggling-schools.html?_r=
-Keep Books /Ohio State- designed as a school/home book program that addresses the need for inexpensive but appropriate books in the home (as little as 25 cents per book).
And the list goes on.
A district on LI saw the need of parent involvement. The Title I teachers taught in the morning and when necessary would visit homes in the afternoon.
Meetings were held for parents/caregivers in the morning and evening at school to accommodate all caregivers. Transportation and baby sitting were provided plus a door prize. Three teachers wrote a grant soliciting money to get books in the homes. A Share-A-Book Club was established. Books were purchased, boxed, catalogued and were sent home on a weekly basis.
I witnessed a church taking on a project to get books into the hands of children. A dept. in Stony Brook University under took a project to get books in the hands of children. At strategic areas were books with a sign, “For the taking.”
Some schools are aiming to have 1000 books read before kindergarten.
The theory is that when parents are more involved, students are less likely to be absent or to have discipline problems, and that parents will give their children academic support at home and will lobby politicians to properly fund schools.
Where there is a will there is a way.
Long before we heard of the “Achievement Gap” Mary Ruth Dieter of Arkansas was delivering books via horseback to children in remote areas. Horse Back Librarian – Eastern Kentucky. http://www.appalachianhistory.net/2011/01/pack-horse-librarians.html
Access to books is essential to reading development: the only variable that directly correlates with reading scores is the number of books in the home. Neuman, Susan B. and David K. Dickinson, ed. Handbook of Early Literacy Research, Volume 2. New York, NY: 2006, p. 31.
“I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power. “ -Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820.
The link between literacy and democracy “Thomas Jefferson has been cited in establishing the link between literacy and democracy: “Illiteracy is no less than a threat to our national security. Thomas Jefferson underscored the importance of literacy when he said, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. An informed citizenry is at the heart of a dynamic democracy.” Kevin Mattson, Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban participatory Democracy During the Progressive Era. (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State U. Press, 1998), p.299.
The Standards do not reflect the importance of literacy. Regurgitating facts isn’t going to make one literate. I had students that read fluently but understood zilich. The Standards do not include the development of the imagination nor application. How could the aligned Standardized test, test for those two important higher order thinking skills when background knowledge is essential to learning.
“Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.” Einstein. One great way to train the mind to think is through literature written by great writers and the illustrated by great artist- reading, listening, responding via writing and discussion are all needed to learn.
When will politicians and governors appropriate the money spent on useless tests, to literacy centers, organizations supporting literacy, and above all mandate that more time be spent on literature in schools in lieu of non-fiction, then we will observe real learning. We find children excited about learning and happy to go to school. Our present Standards and mandatory useless standardized testing is causing children to hate school. Above all we must give back to parents their rights.
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