Leonie Haimson expresses her view of the tenure of New York Commissioner MaryEllen Elia.
Her conclusion: The state needs a fresh start with a commissioner who is willing to listen to parents and who is not in love with testing and Big Tech.
I attended the meeting with Elia that she describes, held a few weeks after she arrived in New York. When members of NYSAPE expressed their opposition to the state’s Common Core tests, Elia responded that the day would come when there was no more annual testing because the tests would be online and students would be continuously assessed, every hour, every day, whenever they logged on.
That was not a comforting thought!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Elia responded that the day would come when there was no more annual testing because the tests would be online and students would be continuously assessed, every hour, every day, whenever they logged on.”
That is already happening and we don’t have to do anything but log on. Every time I clean my computer at least once or twice a month, thousands of those spying crap cookies planted on our computers by corporations to track everything we do online are deleted.
THOUSANDS!
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In Elia’s 530-word resignation letter, she speaks proudly of having reformed accountability. Yet, her departing self-congratulations omit any mention of tests or the Common Core. Maybe, unintendedly, she’s telling us we can have accountability without all the testing.
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The idea of constant testing reminds me of the way Amazon distribution centers work, as described by an article in the Guardian this morning about the Amazon Prime Day strike: “Resembling the factory line, the pace of work is dictated by the complex algorithms, robots and surveillance systems that discipline worker movements down to the second. The “rate” of work is set for each job at a pace that only 75% of workers are able to meet. This rate is constantly pushed higher as new rounds of workers are hired and fired. During my year in an Amazon sortation center outside of Seattle, the rate increased by more than 50%. Managers received productivity bonuses, while we got injured or fired. Amazon profits from having the highest rate of exploitation in the industry, paying average retail industry wages to workers who are far more productive. Wages are not keeping up. This exploitation is a daily indignity.”
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So glad the Elia saga is over! Wake up NYSED and NYS BOR and listen to the ones who knew right from wrong always!
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You know, though, when a person (we would hope; hasn’t happened yet insofar as I can see) is appointed/elected to a position of authority, one would think that that figure would represent constituents or the people to which she/he is actually paid by (in this case, the taxpayers/citizens). Inasmuch as someone would be in as high a position as commissioner, would it not be expected of that person–supposedly at the top, in charge–to state, rather than what Elia actually said about testing–that, “Under my watch, this testing, harmful to children &, most certainly, non-educational, money-making for
private corporations (& just plain stealing from funds which should be used for textbooks, social workers, arts teachers, librarians, etc.), will NOT be occurring. Period.” What she actually said is just as vulgarian as Rahm Emanuel’s initial comments to Karen Lewis, using the F bomb, & telling her that X amount (I forget–was it 25%-?) of the CPS kids wouldn’t amount to anything anyway.
First impressions are everything.
How dare her! Or anyone else who comes in (& make sure this doesn’t happen, NY parents, et.al.) & tries to force te$ting–or any other harm–onto students.
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