Emily Talmage teaches in Maine. She recounts in this post her first encounters with data-driven instruction, both in public schools and in a no-excuses charter school. She has come to understand that the data are not meaningful and that they are inherently at odds with the individual nature of the child, who cannot be defined by numbers. She suspects that someone will use whatever data her classes produces to make money. Better to look at the children in front of you, not the data that reduces them to digits on a spreadsheet.
A few weeks into my first year as a teacher, my colleagues and I met for our first “data team” meeting of the year.
Our principal had printed results from the previous year’s standardized tests and given a copy to each of us.
“Take a few minutes to look at the data, and then we’ll decide what inferences we can make from it,” he instructed.
He had a book with him – something with “data coaches” in the title – and was following a protocol laid out within.
I looked at the graphs, then – smiling – at my principal.
Surely he was joking.
At that point in the year, I had only five students – four third graders and one fifth grader – in a self-contained special ed classroom for kids with severe emotional disturbances. They were children who had experienced extreme trauma and abuse, and who struggled to get through a day at school without an attack of panic, rage, or violence.
All five had gotten one’s – the lowest possible score – on the previous year’s math and reading tests.
“Ms. Kennedy,” our principal said flatly, “what inferences can you make from this data? This is how we will be planning our instruction for the year.”
…
It was my first time experiencing the absurdity of data-driven education, but far from my last.
Then she worked at a no-excuses charter school in Brooklyn, and remembering it still gives her nightmares.
Now teaching in Maine, she is swimming–or drowning–in data, and she learns nothing from it that she didn’t know already.
Yet somewhere, she assumes, someone is figuring out how to monetize the data, even though it is utterly meaningless.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Teaching back in the 1980s after Reagan declared war on the public schools with his flawed and fraudulent report called “A Nation at Risk” to August 2005, when I left teaching for ever, we were swimming in data that real teachers ignored. We did our duty by attended the mandatory meetings, and then returned to the classroom forgetting all the crap that was being shoveled out of the data sewer. Back in the classroom, we were teachers again. Not data whores.
The only risk to the United States started with Nixon and is still with us in the bloated mind and body psycho, malignant narcissist Fake-President Donald Trump and his ignorant, racist, Alt-Right conservative brain dead supporters.
Lloyd,
Thank you for your comments. AMEN!
There’s a terrible irony in people’s simultaneously insisting on working from data from standardized tests and their not recognizing that the tests fail the simplest of tests for reliability and validity of the data.
Any standardized test based on standards [sic] as vague as our existing standards [sic] are will be invalid and unreliable. Given one of these vague standards [sic], I can write a test of those standards [sic] with any degree of pass rate that you want.
“What are the outcomes?”
“I don’t know yet. What outcomes do you want?”
The very people mouthing the “data” mantra are the ones least likely to have any clue what separates meaningful data from noise. If that’s not so, then why don’t they see the obvious problem that I have pointed out here?
Amen, Bob.
Noel Wilson clued us into the invalidities (and then by definition, unreliability) in his never refuted nor rebutted 1997 dissertation “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
So as to not Chiletize this thread see below for my summary and comments of his dissertation.
Duane,
I’m so pleased that Australian educators are now listening to you.
Testucation is what Phil Cullin calls it. Be looking in your university mail for a copy of the book. Should be getting there pretty soon.
It is all about money.
The use of big data in education is analogous to the application of “free market” ideology to schools. Before I read “The Death and Life of…” I was enamored with big data. I saw the potential it had in medical research. (The entire field of bioinformatics was unknown about 12 years ago and now no serious cancer research center can do its work without an in-house bioinformatics team.) It’s also improved transportation infrastructure immeasurably (no pun intended). I really appreciate everyone who has contributed to this blog who has taught me to discern between those uses and the classroom.
Companies that collect data don’t release the test questions. It a big lie based on vapor.
????
Late ’80s, early ’90’s ‘vaporware’ referred to essentially useless software. It came
and went quicker than a beetle on a junebug. (IBM)
Might the monetization of the data be simply supplying a “justification” for the next round of tests?
YES!
I think you hit the nail on the head! There is no legitimate educational benefit to all the data collection, particularly when the data do and cannot inform instruction. Data is used to erroneously rate and rank, students, teachers and schools. Of course, it also generates lots of profit for third parties.
If I may adjust your thought a tad: “There is no legitimate educational benefit to all the data collection, particularly when the data are completely invalid and do not and cannot inform instruction.
A future’s market of student education via securitized social impact bonds that fund education via public private partnerships. That’s what big data aggregation is about. That and social control.
Emily perfectly describes the Kafka-esque ritual at my school. Year after year after year of data that tells us nothing clear, but that is supposed to “drive instruction”. It’s a farce.If the tests tested something concrete, like world geography, and we got to see the questions that kids got wrong, then maybe it would be useful. But what we get is “Joey is Level 2 at language arts” and the principal tells us to get him to Level 3. How??? What guidance does the data give us? None.
exactly
Diane,
You are a heroine. Needed to say this. Thank you.
When I read your posts, I am always in awe of your stamina, intelligence, honesty, and care/support of our wonderful PUBLIC SCHOOLS and our PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS, Parents/Guardians, and Students.
The DEFORM of public education by both the GOP and the DNC is totally reprehensible. I am most thankful for your posts, which contain not only useful information, but also humor and wit.
By now, many must be aware of the merger of Google and WALMART. Google has gone to the dark side.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/22/wal-mart-partners-with-google-to-offer-voice-shopping-via-google-home.html
What is it about these companies anyway? They get totally GREEDY and ARROGANT.
Again, thank you, Diane.
Thank you, Yvonne!
Wait a minute. Google and Walmart are not merging. They are and will remain independent companies. The article discusses their partnership to offer voice shopping via google home.
Ah, but Amazon and Whole Foods are merging.
Yeah, Amazon just announced the prices would be going down. I am wondering what will happen to the workers. My daughter worked at Whole Foods briefly after college. While she did not like the work, it helped feed her and she did say they treated their employees well with good opportunities for advancement.
If what the press is being told is true, the Whole Foods management is going to stay in place. No word on pay and benefits yet. The reason the prices are being dropped might be because Amazon plans to pay off all of the debt that Whole Foods has piled up over the years.
Without debt, Whole Foods will be very competitive explaining why stock prices for Walmart, Costco and other super market chains dropped once the word was out.
Evidently, simply uttering the word “data” makes whatever stupid thing one is doing acceptable. Magically, the craziest stuff becomes “scientific.”
The current standards and testing regime is pseudoscience.
It’s astrology, phrenology, Dianetics, pyramids for channeling cosmic energies, magnetic bracelets for treating cancer, aromatherapy footbaths for removing bodily toxins. . . .
Or, best fit: numerology.
People who take these tests or the outcomes from them at all seriously should be laughed off the national stage.
One can understand the motivations of the companies that profit from the standards-and-testing regime. What’s sickening is that some professional educators take these absurd, unscientific tests and the amateurish “standards” on which they are based seriously.
Numerologists running our schools.
Most educators are very earnest about using this bad data, because test scores make or break a school’s reputation these days. Sadly few teachers have the intellectual wherewithal to challenge the legitimacy of these tests. By this I do not mean to say that teachers are dumb. It’s that the tests are so wreathed in obfuscating nebulae that few people can say what they really are or what they are supposed to be measuring or whether those things they are supposedly measuring are really THINGS at all. Their vagueness makes them almost impervious to critique.
But anyone ought to be able to figure out that when a standard is very, very vague and abstract (e.g., “cite evidence . . . to support inferences:”), one can write a question based on that standard that is at any level of difficulty whatsoever. It should be obvious enough to anyone, for this reason alone, that one cannot reliably or validly measure attainment of the standard because it isn’t concrete enough to specify some particular, measurable thing.
Well the “skill” of citing evidence IS being measured, right? But you’re saying citing evidence from Captain Underpants that its hero is brave does not mean that one can cite evidence from Physics that Aristotle does not believe in atoms, right? Failure to cite evidence in the latter case does not mean the kid lacks this skill; it just means she doesn’t understand Aristotle’s Physics (a problem many of us have). And success in the former case does not tell us that she has accomplished anything over and above what a brain can naturally do; it just means that she understands Captain Underpants and can do the fairly simple, logical function of connecting claim to proof.
When the standard is this abstract and vague, one can measure it at any level of difficulty, so the standard does not specify what kids at a particular level are supposed to be able to do. Ideally, a standard would tell us “A kid at this level can do x.” Standards this vague and abstract don’t do that. Based on that standard, I can write a test at any level of difficulty whatsoever and get whatever results I decide that I want to get. That’s absurd.
And it isn’t enough to specify that the test question about the standard be based on a grade-level appropriate text. I can write an extremely simple question that involves citing evidence to support an inference based on a passage from War and Peace, or I can write an incredibly difficult question based on the same standard and the same text. The problem is with the vagueness and abstractness of the standard.
I see what you’re saying.
But to me the deeper problem is that the tests are “measuring” things that aren’t really things. The “skill of describing characters”. The “skill of comparing and contrasting”. The “skill of citing evidence”. Aren’t these things our brains can just naturally DO if they understand the text (didn’t Kant believe the mind possessed such capacities a priori?)? When one fails to do these things, it’s not because one lacks these capacities, it’s because one is confused by the text. Is there really a discrete, all-purpose skill of “describing”? To describe Julien Sorel, first I must understand The Red and the Black. This means I must know most of the words that Stendahl uses. This means I must have learned something about the world, because words are tokens of things in the world. This means I must have had adults explain a lot of things to me, orally or through other readings. And then I must marshal words to make a description of Julien Sorel, which means I must have words at my command, which means I’ve had a robust exposure to words. In other words, this “skill” is not a discrete module that can be imparted by a teacher in a mini-lesson or even in a whole semester devoted to description, but rather the fruit of a long career of mental cultivation. But by framing education as a matter of acquiring discrete skill modules, as Common Core and other misguided standards do, we neglect this mental cultivation and concoct fruitless units on “teaching” the “skills” of description, comparing and contrasting, citing evidence, etc. This, it seems to me, is the central scandal of education in America today.
Brilliant. Yes., Yes. Yes.
“is there really an all-purpose skill of describing?” you ask, brilliantly. And the answer is, of course, that there isn’t. But this very issue is to be found in a great many of these “standards.” They lump together disparate matters and reify or hypostasize. People are led to believe that there really is some generalized finding the main idea skill or inferencing skill or whatever when such a thing is entirely illusory. I’ve described this process in the past as being like using a single term to describe nausea, shoelaces, vassalage, and the freckles on Socrates’s forehead.
cx: using a single term TO REFER TO . . .
Really wonderful to have the opportunity to read what you write, Ponderosa. What a careful, original thinker you are! Awesome.
Have been fighting “data driven instructional decision making” since I first heard the term during a being professionally developed day back in 98 or so. The district I was in was trying to “get ahead of the curve” because that data crap was the “wave of the future”. Well here we are in the future and that data is still crap.
Dwayne,
Once, after I had an MS in physics, I was hired by a medical school to work on building a ‘physical biochemistry lab’. I also have a degree in Astronomy, so I think I know something (though, perhaps not everything) about statistics.
Any useful statistic needs to be accompanied by an ‘error estimate’ and needs to be measuring something clearly agreed upon by everyone (brightness, position, etc.). When psychology pretends to measure ‘intelligence’ every rule is broken, and it sends Gauss whirling in his grave.
These new tests that pretend to measure ‘teaching’ or ‘skill’ or ‘learning’ are simply an extension of the attempt to (or pretense to) measure ‘intelligence’. There is no clear (non-circular) definition of the trait to be measured, or of it’s importance to a larger society. And, no indication of uncertainty (statistical, rather easy to calculate for those who ‘like numbers’) is ever attached.
It is not statistics, but their bogus use that is the problem. Most people think that numbers and computers are ‘scientific’, and so they must be honored. I have a funny story about that.
When I went to the Biochemistry Dept., I found that there was only only one other person who had even a passing acquaintance with computers (this was in the late 60’s). Even that person had little understanding of statistical analysis. At first, I took information, analyzed using a calculator it and wrote out the result for the various profs and post-docs. I found they often questioned the result, so I wrote simple programs (Basic or Fortran) and ran them on a computer hooked up to a teletype machine. Suddenly, the questions stopped. After all, if a machine typed it out, it must be factual! Never mind that I was the one programming the machine.
People are attracted to the certainty that numbers seem to provide. Unfortunately, those numbers can be used to control people, even if they have no value. The ancient Greeks understood that inductive logic always had more value than deductive. We have forgotten that lesson.
But, it goes even deeper. Because people venerate numbers (and certainty), they are easily manipulated by those who spout them in a blatantly (to me) inaccurate way. Sadly, numbers have become a way to buffalo people. Remember ‘Ivory Soap’, 99 and 44 one hundredths percent pure? Pure what? Pure bullshit.
Statistics teaches that there is no certainty (well before Heisenberg). There is only a ‘best guess’ at any particular time, subject to change. Statistics revolving around a poorly defined concept are worthless. As a saying in my past explains, GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). Computers and statistics aren’t the problem, our blind belief in the stuff that comes out of machines is.
Very well said, Mr. Wund. I wish that every high-school Principal and every state department education official in the country would read what you have written here. Superb.
“People are attracted to the certainty that numbers seem to provide.”
The apparent certainty that numbers seem, for so many people, to connote is what I call lending a scientific sheen or a “scientificity” to claims that do not warrant scientific veracity.
I’ve gone back through the testing bible put out by the APA, et.al., “Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing” highlighting the words measure, measurement and metric(s) and so far those terms have been used an average of 3-4 times a page. I guess if one declares something often enough it makes a statement true.
Thanks for the excellent and enlightening post!
I do have to thank you, Duane, for your impassioned critique of testing and “measurement.” You have very effectively pointed out the fallacies in testing as measurement. The idiocy of that idea began to hit home when the canned reading program I was teaching wanted me to make instructional decisions on the basis of ten question quizzes in which no more than two questions even pretended to be on one topic. I never made a decision simply on the basis of these quizzes; common sense told me that I had better and/or additional ways of obtaining info to supplement or even refute any suggestions the program gave me. Your analysis, however, has explained to me why I felt so uncomfortable and, in addition, vastly expanded my understanding. Thanks again.
speduktr,
Thanks for the kind words!
But I must give credit where credit is due and that is to Noel Wilson as it is from his dissertation that many of my thoughts come. I’ve added some other bits and pieces along the way but most is his thinking.
Check out my book (on Amazon) wherein I combine some of Wilson’s points on the invalidities of standardized testing with thoughts on the purpose of public education/government, ethics of teaching, truth and justice issues to conclude that we should immediately cease the standards and testing regime due to the inherent state sponsored discrimination and the attendant harms it causes many if not all students.
Forgot to mention the title “Infidelity to Truth: Education Malpractice in American Public Education”.
Duane, please send me a review copy.
Write me offline and I will send you a mailing address.
I sent one to your university address. If you would like another please email me at duaneswacker@gmail.com as when I looked up your mailing address on the dr.com site the university address is what I found. Let me know.
P.S. Don’t worry you’re not that special, I sent one to Betsy DeVos also 🙂 LOL!
“Uncertainty”
Position and momentum
Uncertain it would seem
To measure both in tandem
Is really just a dream
To try to “measure” learning
Is really game of fools
Impossible discerning
If even there are rules
Another excellent poem, SDP! Per usual, eh! Gracias.
Continued from above:
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine.
A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other words all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Right on, Emily. And, your use of the word “absurdity” is VERY important.
For if a culture, for if everyday, hardworking citizens are willing to sit by and live with the sort of intellectual absurdity that has been forced upon and hurt our school CHILDREN in recent years, then what other sorts of other moral tragedies will our nation also be willing to accept? What comes next after Donald Trump?
Thank God for people who are willing to fight back.
The bottom line is that we know that teaching that is completely focused on data is not developmentally appropriate. We are actively harming our children by focusing on data and letting data dictate what ,when and how we teach children. Educators cannot continue to let testing companies control us and use us as tools to generate the data that undermines us. We’ve got to stand up for children.
“We’ve got to stand up for children.”
Exactly Meneca!
And when teachers and adminimals don’t stand up for children, the educators are Going Along to Get Along (GAGA) Good Germans putting personal expediency ahead of justice for the children. I’ll let someone far wiser than me explain:
“Should we therefore forgo our self-interest? Of course not. But it [self-interest] must be subordinate to justice, not the other way around. . . . To take advantage of a child’s naivete. . . in order to extract from them something [test scores, personal information] that is contrary to their interests, or intentions, without their knowledge [or consent of parents] or through coercion [state mandated testing], is always and everywhere unjust even if in some places and under certain circumstances it is not illegal. . . . Justice is superior to and more valuable than well-being or efficiency; it cannot be sacrificed to them, not even for the happiness of the greatest number [quoting Rawls]. To what could justice legitimately be sacrificed, since without justice there would be no legitimacy or illegitimacy? And in the name of what, since without justice even humanity, happiness and love could have no absolute value?. . . Without justice, values would be nothing more than (self) interests or motives; they would cease to be values or would become values without worth.”—Andre Comte-Sponville in “A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues” [my additions]
It appears our Los Angeles principals 3000 miles away from Maine have been reading from the same ridiculous script!!!
Sorry, off topic: I’m sick and tired of seeing Uber stickers in the windows of Mercedes Benz’s in West L.A. You can own a car worth over a hundred thousand dollars and you have to put some poor cabby out of work so you can hustle a few extra bucks?! Really? Really!
I taught for 40 years in the classroom as a middle school teacher and as an adult educator. I loved teaching and working with students and adults. My last years were all about data and testing. I lost the thrill and excitement that motivates that art of teaching. The changes and accountability have not been a positive force in the classroom for me. I hope that the voices of reason will ring loud and clear! Thanks to all who support and defend public education.
Many of us had your experience, Ms. Spilman. The standards-and-testing farce has killed the teaching of English in K-12. Most English teachers I know are now looking to do anything else.
Here’s another great Emily Talmadge piece:
(which includes video of a meeting where irate parents were told that their school was being closed and turned over to Master charter … that it was a done deal, with no parent input … they were getting this charter conversion jammed down their throats, to quote Jonah Edelman .. .and the parents went ballistic):
https://emilytalmage.com/2017/08/24/why-arent-we-talking-about-this/
Here’s that “throat jamming” parent meeting: (riveting stuff)
There’s so much in this video that you need to watch. I’ll just give you one such example
The parents keep reiterating that they love the teachers of the pre-existing traditional school, McGraw Elementary. At one point, the Mastery people respond to that, and try to put one over on the parents by claiming that the new privately-managed Mastery incarnation of the school would allow all those teachers to stay, which was technically true, but extremely unlikely. One particular parent, armed with a document, then explains this to the room.
This parent — who’s also a parent volunteer — challenged the MASTERY GUY leading the meeting and holds up this document which she obtained and brought to the meeting:
(26:48 – )
(26:48 – )
ANGRY PARENT /PARENT VOLUNTEER: “I have a question about that, because I have the paper right here. (holds up paper) It says that you (i.e. an existing McGraw teacher) cannot keep your tenure if you stay here, and go to work in the Mastery school (i.e. choose to join the new Mastery incarnation of the school). So- “
MASTER GUY: “Let me explain that-”
ANGRY PARENT /PARENT VOLUNTEER: “No, let me finish. So if the teachers (who choose to stay on in the new Mastery school) have to give up all their years of hard work (i.e. teachers can now be fired at will, and your years of seniority will no longer be factored into your pay)…
“Now listen parents. I work here. but I’m not here for me. Okay? This my first year here, but I’m not here for that. I’m here, I’m here for everybody. I’m here for everybody. I’m here for the teachers, for the kids, and for the parents who don’t have a voice.
“Okay?”
“Now, it says right here on this paper (holds up paper) that they (current teachers who stay at the new Mastery charter) will not keep their tenure, so what reason do they have to stay here, give up all your years of hard work, to stay here and work for Mastery?
“Why would they DO that? They’re NOT gonna stay!”
MASTERY GUY: “Look, I know that you’re a committed parent here, and I appreciate that conversation that we had the other day. “
(MASTERY GUY then explains that teachers have the following option: current McGraw Elementary teachers have a three-year window where they can try out working for Mastery. During that time, they will leave the district and will essentially be working for a private company, like working at Best Buy. During that three-year window, they can opt to return to the district, and once placed, will regain their full tenure, and seniority pay, rights, etc. intact.
This statement ignores some facts.
But what if the district reneges on that promise, or what if those nominally return, but are not placed? Good luck suing the district, and funding such a lawsuit on a teacher’s salary, and going up the district’s multi-million-dollar legal team while doing so.
Also, what MASTERY GUY didn’t mention is that, if those teachers stay beyond that three-year window, they have definitely and forever left the district, with their tenure and seniority permanently wiped out.
Also, MASTERY GUY neglects to state that, while working at Mastery, a veteran McGraw teacher — some with 30 years at the current traditional school — will have the same low pay, and fired-at-will status as a 22-year-old Teacher For America teachers that will make up the rest of the staff.)
ANGRY PARENT /PARENT VOLUNTEER: “But that’s if you (a teacher who joins the new Mastery version of the school McGraw) want to go back (to the district). But if you leave (the district totally, by staying beyond the 3-year window), and (the only we a current McGraw teacher can) stay with your McGraw kids, you have to give up everything that you worked 20, 25, 30, 15, 10 years … You have to give that up, (as the only way) to stay with your kids!
“We can understand if the teachers don’t do that. Because they worked for that, and they deserve that! And it shouldn’t be taken away from them!”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
It’s hard to make out, but a little later, one of the parents bring up something about the new teachers that will be coming in. Without mentioning them by name, they talk about how these “new teachers” motivation for teaching here will be “just to pay off their student loans,” thus calling into question both their motivation, and future effectiveness as teachers — as compared to the current teachers with whom those parents have relationships.
That’s a reference to Teacher for America’s “loan forgiveness program,” where, if a TFA teachers complete two years as a Teach for America Corps Member, they will then have their student loans “forgiven” through TFA’s affiliation with Americorps, a government program. That’s a program not available to non-Teacher for America teachers who plan on teaching for a career or 20, 30, 40 years.
This incentiviizes the former (choosing TFA), while disincentivizing the latter (choosing teaching as a career).
Another parent chimes in, complimenting that parent’s bringing up TFA’s “loan forgiveness” program, “You did your homework.” They parents are concerned that teachers that have taught at McGraw for decades will now be replaced by TFA teachers who will only stay there for quick cup o’ coffee, build their resume, and then move on their “real” career.
Indeed, whose interests are being served by this charter takeover of McGraw?
“Data Driven”
They never are given
A chance to decide
When data are driven
Along for the ride
I came late to this conversation. I had my brother over to eat last night and was busy talking about his latest visit to France with his wife’s people. She grew up in Alsace or Lorainne before she moved here.
They visited her brother in Brittany. There they saw rocks set by the Celtic peoples who planted them in long rows . They are so numerous that they stretch over hills and under ocean inlets before re-emerging on hills opposite the water. No one understands why they did this, but I bet I can guess the process they went through.
First, they carefully considered the standards for rock placement. The head Celt hired a man who was uniquely qualified to count rocks to write standards for their placement. Claiming to know the truth of the gods, he delineated how these rocks were to be placed. Since he owned the rocks and could sell them to the community, he suggest long rows and all the celts labored with intensity for years.
Are we much improved?
Standards are silly on the face of it. Comparison of intellect is diabolical. Testing is a way to validate writing standards. The logic is circular, the result of its use futile. We might as well set rocks in the ground in long rows.
LOL
Ditto.