Janet Barresi, state superintendent in Oklahoma, was defeated in the Republican primary by Joy Hofmeister, a former teacher and state school board member. Barresi was a member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change (which dropped from seven to six with Barresi’s defeat). . She supported Jeb’s A-F grading system for schools, which Hofmeister opposed. Like Jeb, Barresi supported Common Core until Oklahoma dropped (h/t to Mercedes Schneider for the correction); Joy Hofmeister does not.
Archives for category: Administrators, superintendents
Arizona State Commissioner of Education John Huppenthal admitted he left many comments anonymously on blogs.
This is causing him some problems in his re-election campaign, as some of his comments were highly insulting and inflammatory to various groups.
The Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry canceled plans to honor him at its annual awards ceremony.
Here are what one blog calls his “top ten” anonymous comments.
Huppenthal is in hot water. As one editorialist in Arizona wrote:
“He called poor people “lazy pigs” and made inane comparisons between stuff he doesn’t like and Hitler, but let’s honor the First Amendment here and leave the content of his speech off the table. He did two things wrong – he hid behind pseudonyms, and when caught he offered up a non-apology apology.
“If you’re going out in the public sphere, use your name, be you and own it. Otherwise, you don’t deserve an audience.
“And if you step in it, do not say what Huppenthal did (and in a “statement,” no less): “I sincerely regret if my comments have offended anyone.”
“What a load of horse puckey.
“What he’s saying is, if no one’s offended by what he said, then he’s not sorry. So if there’s no fundamental level of sorry-ness, why are you apologizing?
Mr. Huppenthal, you’re a leader. If you’re sorry about what you posted, say, “What I said was wrong, I renounce it, and I promise not to promote those beliefs again.” If you’re not sorry, say, “Yeah, I said it, I meant it, and I will use my own name from now on.”
Huppenthal is identified on Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education website as “one of Arizona’s leading education reformers” because of his support for school choice and the Common Core.
Mark Henry, superintendent of the Cypress-Fairbanks district in Texas, stood up and spoke out for common sense and education ethics. In this article, he explains why his district–the third largest in Texas–will not participate in a pilot test to evaluate teachers by student test scores.
He writes:
“This latest movement to “teacher-proof” education places additional fear, anxiety and pressure on professionals who are stressed enough already. I have seen this first-hand with principals and teachers who fret over the STAAR test, a once-per-year high-stakes assessment that measures how a child performed on one test on one day. Is that really learning? I don’t think so. Testing is a key diagnostic tool, and results should be used to assess the progress of students so plans can be developed to address the gaps and deficiencies of each student.
Learning is not a business; it’s a process. Use of a teacher evaluation system tied to standardized test scores alienates educators by trying to transform classrooms into cubicles. There are many more elements that go into teaching and learning than a high-stakes, pressurized test. Tying student test scores to a teacher’s evaluation may improve test scores, but does it improve a child’s educational outcome?”
Henry says there are three reasons that schools fail: mismanagement by school boards and superintendents; ineffective principals; lack of community support.
He does not blame teachers for poor leadership or systemic failure.
He writes:
“Let’s quit trying to “teacher-proof” education and stop the overreliance on data from one high-stakes test. The answers for improvement are recruiting, training and supporting our teaching professionals. Attention to these will deepen the effectiveness of what we do in the classroom and the biggest winners will be our children. ”
Mark Henry is a hero of public education for his willingness to stand against a misinformed and harmful status quo.
American Association of School Administrators say the Common Core must be slowed down.
“Dear Colleagues:
As we move forward in advocating on behalf of school superintendents, one of the hottest topics right now is the Common Core State Standards. I am pleased to share with you that AASA, The School Superintendents Association, released today a report on the implementation of Common Core and other new state standards.
This report follows a survey of superintendents nationwide which received more than 500 responses from 48 states. The report’s findings echoed the position AASA has taken on Common Core: we need to slow down to get it right. Given enough time and resources, districts and teachers will have the opportunity to implement the standards and aligned assessments in a way that bolsters student learning. AASA opposes the overreliance on standardized testing and the use of one test to assess both student learning and teacher effectiveness, especially so early in the implementation of the new standards.
The survey’s key findings included:
Superintendents overwhelmingly (92.5 percent) see the new standards as more rigorous than previous standards.
More than three quarters (78.3 percent) agree that the education community supports the standards, but that support drops to 51.4 percent among the general public.
Nearly three quarters of the respondents (73.3 percent) agree that the political debate has gotten in the way of the implementation of the new standards.
Nearly half (47 percent) say their input was never requested in the decision to adopt or develop new standards or in planning the implementation.
More than half (60.3 percent) of the respondents who had begun testing say they are facing problems with the tests.
Just under half (41.9 percent) say schools in their states are not ready to implement the online assessment, while 35.9 percent say they lack the infrastructure to support online assessments.
A superintendent from Connecticut said, “don’t fly the ship while you are building it. Students shouldn’t be stressed about testing on something they have never been taught. Teachers shouldn’t be evaluated on the success of student on the tests when they have not been teaching the breadth of the (Common Core State Standards).”
The results from the survey demonstrate that districts are working with limited resources to implement the new, more rigorous standards, despite technology deficits, a dearth of quality professional development materials for school personnel and a challenging national debate. These results reinforce the AASA position that the standards will be a positive change, if districts are given the necessary time and funding to properly implement the new standards and assessments.
To access a copy of the report, visit http://aasa.org/uploadedFiles/Publications/AASA_CCSS_Report.pdf. Thank you to all who participated.
Sincerely,
Dan Domenech
The race for State Superintendent of Education in California pits veteran educator Tom Torlakson–who has held the job since 2010–against Marshall Tuck, who is closely associated with the privatization movement. A third candidate, Lydia Gutierrez, is notable in the race for her opposition to Common Core. With the unions supporting Torlakson and the business sector behind Tuck, Gutierrez is considered a long shot.
The election will be held on June 3.
Gary Cohn, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, profiled the two men.
Cohn writes about Marshall Tuck:
“The 40-year-old Tuck is a Harvard Business School graduate who has worked as an investment banker for Salomon Brothers and as an executive at Model N, a revenue-management software company. He is a former president of Green Dot Public Schools, a charter school operation in Los Angeles, and later served as the first head of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools — former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s controversial education nonprofit that tried to improve 17 low-performing public schools, with mixed results.
“Tuck’s candidacy is supported by the same mix of wealthy education privatizers, Silicon Valley and entertainment money, hedge fund and real estate interests that backed privatization candidates in the 2013 Los Angeles Unified School District school board election — when billionaire businessmen such as Eli Broad and Michael Bloomberg gave large campaign contributions to an unsuccessful effort to defeat board member Steve Zimmer. (The Broad Residency, an education management program operated by the Broad Foundation, lists Tuck as an alumnus.)”
Torlakson, by contrast, takes pride in his years as a teacher. “Torlakson is a veteran science teacher and track coach. Torlakson, who is still a teacher on leave from Contra Costa County’s Mount Diablo Unified School District, says he usually teaches one community college course every year. He was elected as California’s 27th State Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2010 after serving in the state legislature.”
Tuck supports the parent trigger law, which allows a simple majority of parents to seize control of their school and hand it over to a charter corporation. He also supports the plaintiffs in the Vergara case, a lawsuit that seeks to eliminate teachers’ due process rights.
Robert D. Skeels, writing in L.A. Progressive, rips Marshall Tuck for closing down ethnic studies programs and heritage language studies programs while running the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools. He reviews Tuck’s record at Green Dot charter schools and the Mayor’s Partnership and renders a scathing judgment.
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Laurel Sturt says that old-fashioned schoolyard bullying has evolved into Internet malice, protected by anonymity. She says bullying has become a national pastime for some political leaders. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has cultivated a reputation as a bully, jabbing his finger at lesser mortals.
And then bullying is built into education policy–federal, state, and local.
She writes:
“Though the psychopathic rush of inflicting pain on another human being is not one most of us would appreciate, we have only to look at the realm of education to see an acceleration of bullying, in multiple guises. Take, for example, the oppressive federal mandates sent down from on high, No Child Left Behind, and its successor, Race to the Top. Here we have, for all intents and purposes, sadistic edicts impossible to fulfill, the charge of NCLB, “proficiency” for all children by 2014, nothing short of an iron mask for teachers and kids alike; states were bullied to participate to get millions in federal school funding. One would think subjecting kids to the torture of test prep and testing while losing a decade of authentic education, tilting futilely at an arbitrary data windmill, would have been consigned to the mistakes file. Yet, showing that arm twisting through policy is an equal opportunity, bipartisan affront, through his Bully of Education Arne Duncan, the very premise of Obama’s RTTT has relied on the legalized notion of bullying, bribery and extortion: sign on to our agenda or you’ll starve for funds.
“Within the Race to the Top straitjacket, then, the bullying theme has continued with the individual mandates: bullying standards developed undemocratically by not educators but profit-motivated bullies; bullied instruction forced on teachers by these standards; and parents bullied to share their children’s private data, their rights to privacy stripped by education business lobbyist cum bullies. Then there’s the bullying of teachers through evaluations unfairly tied to the test scores of the bullied kids, victimized students who, subjected to impossible work and tests, are displaying symptoms of bullying–depression, anxiety, insomnia, nausea, hopelessness, with the added bonus of a PTSD scar for life.
“Move down to the next level of power, and state and local bullying is flourishing. Here in New York we have a governor and education officials stonily unmoved by the pain they’ve signed us onto with RTTT, with no movement in sight to end it, notwithstanding a coming fall election; their intransigent coercion in the face of hardship is bullying. New York City teachers and students recently endured a decade of bullying micromanagement under the dictator Michael Bloomberg, a mayor in control of the schools, a nationwide experiment which has yielded low achievement results but a much higher degree of yes, bullying.”
Bullying moves into the classroom, where teachers are compelled to violate their professional ethics by authoritarian principals.
The bullying will continue until teachers stand united and resist. Those who bully them, steal their reputations and their profession can and must be stopped. Resistance is the best defense against the bullies. Don’t stand alone. Stand together.
Every once in a while a superintendent tells the parents in his district what is in his heart, not the bureaucratic blather that usually comes out automatically.
Paul Jones is the superintendent of the Paris Independent School District in Texas. He posted a letter to the parents in his district on its website letting them know that the test scores do not define their child. No doubt he also understands that the scores are arbitrary and depend on whatever passing mark the test company or state official chooses.
He wrote:
“Next week, you will be receiving your child’s STAAR/TAKS results for the 2013-2014 school year. I’m writing this letter on behalf of PISD administrators, teachers, staff, and board members. These results should be considered as one of many instruments used to measure your child’s growth, not the end-all of your child’s learning for the year.
“These assessments do not reflect the quality of teaching or learning in our classrooms. Instead, they reflect a punitive; one size fits all test-driven system. Our students are much more than a once-a-year pencil and bubble sheet test. Your child means immeasurably more than just a number generated in Austin. There is no test that can assess all of what makes each child unique. The state mandated assessments are used by the state to score and rank our campuses and our district, however, this is not the only assessment we use for Paris ISD students. We have higher standards. Your child’s achievements must be measured by a multitude of accomplishments throughout the year. Your individual child’s academic growth is what is important, and we assess your child’s growth from the start of the school year to the end of the school year.
“In contrast, your child is assessed by the state with a criterion-referenced test (STAAR), which assesses how your child performs on a single day and uses those results to compare your child to a predetermined standard set by bureaucrats in Austin and a testing company headquartered in London, England.
“We all know students do not master skills at the same rate; each individual child has their strengths and weaknesses. This single test cannot measure what we know about your child. Many of our students play sports, play musical instruments, dance, sing, speak multiple languages, write and perform poetry or songs, and create amazing works of art. We have students working multiple jobs at night to help support their family. Many of our students are the main caregivers for younger siblings late into the evening hours. Our classrooms are reflective of a multi-faceted student involved in a wide variety of activities, both academic and extra-curricular. It is not just drill and kill for one test.
“Although the data from this assessment will help us know when to offer enrichment or intervention, we will use the state assessment for the purpose the original assessment system was created–a diagnostic tool for identifying areas of concern as well as strengths. Individual student data will be aligned with local assessment data to develop educational plans that ensure continued progress for our students. Your child’s growth and love of learning are our main goals at PISD.
“Unfortunately, bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. and Austin have designed a one-size-fits-all assessment system that doesn’t necessarily reflect your individual child’s growth and achievements. Our students, not the state assessment, will be our main focus and top priority. Our instructional goals are to prepare each child to be college and/or career ready for the 21st Century.
“So, yes, we live in a time when standardized test results are a reality. However, let’s not let the STAAR test overshadow what is truly important–each individual child. Let us not forget to celebrate the vast and numerous accomplishments and successes the students of PISD have achieved this school year. It has been a great one!
“Paul Jones,
Superintendent Paris Independent School District”
If you open the link, you will see that the reporter from the Dallas Morning News is less impressed than I am. He thinks that it is important to measure basic skills with a standardized test (if the test is worthy) and that Jones took a cheap shot at Pearson for being based in London.
I don’t agree. The standardized tests made by Pearson have no connection to what children were taught unless the district bought the Pearson textbooks. The teacher should test what she taught, not what Pearson prefers. Look, Texans should be outraged that the state paid Pearson nearly $500 million for five years, when Néw York got a five year contract for only $32 million. Sorry, Jeff, this is big business, not education. Nationally, billions are at stake. Superintendent Jones knows it. He also knows that every child needs to be appreciated for what they can do, not punished for what they can’t do.
What is admirable about Mr. Jones is that he understands that the tole of the school is human development, not the ranking and sorting of children for industry.
He has judgement, wisdom, a heart, and a brain. And that’s why I am adding him to the honor roll.
Howard Malfucci is a retired superintendent.
On his blog, which he calls “Common Sense NY,” he deconstructs the claims of an active superintendent who is defending Common Core.
Are we really swamped by failure? Isn’t it important to look closely at who is failing to finish high school and why they are not? Why assume they are failing to graduate because the standards were too low?
To the claim that “meaningful learning” is occurring in classrooms that use Common Core, Malfucci responds, “Well, meaningful learning has been occurring in classrooms before the Common Core. Actually, that’s a pretty offensive statement on the part of this superintendent. Hundreds of thousands of students who went through school before the Common Core can attest to that. And, the article cites a parent who has two daughters in school. She said, “I’m not really sure if I believe that. I think it’s too early to tell.” That’s a very astute statement.”
It is time for common sense. It is also time to stop the overblown claims about the Common Core. And it is time for the Common Core propaganda mill to stop treating all critics as extremists.
A reader sent this comment:
Dear Diane,
I was wondering if you could create a post to get the anti-testing movement that seems to be thriving downstate to garner some more support upstate.
I teach in a suburb of Rochester, NY. My school is on the “west side,” where household incomes are substantially lower than they are on the “east side.”
Today a colleague emailed me a link to a letter that the Superintendent of Pittsford Central Schools (one of the most affluent districts in upstate NY) had posted on the school’s website.
I found the post upsetting and confusing. It could be paraphrased to read: Hey parents, these tests aren’t so bad, and our kids do GREAT on them! Please send them to school and tell them to do their very, very best!
The second paragraph upsets me the most because Superintendent Pero credits Pittsford’s “exceptional performance” on last year’s Common Core tests to the teachers in his district for their “engaging lessons” and their approach of teaching the “whole child.”
I, too, teach in a phenomenal school. We do not teach the modules, and we have a collaborative department that is always seeking to improve. However, our passing rate on last year’s exams was less than 40%. I have friends who teach in the city of Rochester—their passing rate on last year’s exams was the lowest in the state. I would like to know if Superintendent Pero believes that teachers at these neighboring districts only teach the “partial child” through “disengaging lessons.”
As I fumed about this letter to some friends and colleagues, I learned some interesting background information. It seems Pittsford had a significant amount of opt-outs last for last week’s disastrous ELA exams, and many students who did take the tests used their essay booklets to write letters to Commissioner King. I just finished scoring exams, and we had a few too—those tests will earn a 0.
So maybe Superintendent Pero doesn’t really think the testing is fine, but he needs to scramble to make sure as many of his smart kids as possible show up for the math tests in a few weeks.
Sincerely,
An anonymous teacher in upstate NY
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