Archives for category: Childhood, Pre-K, K
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Dr. Yohuru Williams: Everything I Need to Know about Corporate Reform I Learned in Kindergarten

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2014 //
11

Dr. Yohuru Williams teaches history at Fairfield University in Connecticut.

In this post, he condenses the lessons of the best-seller All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, reducing sixteen lessons to only six. They are on point and hilarious.

These are six rules to live by and to learn by. School would be a far better place for learning if everyone took Dr. Williams’ good advice.

Here are two of his rules:

 

  • Play fair. (Of course, this is impossible when the ultimate measure of a student’s success is reduced to how well they perform on standardized tests). Recent cheating scandals, involving some of the luminaries of Corporate Education Reform, illustrate the danger of a hyper-competitive model of education that substitutes standardization for innovation instead of more organic and battle-tested measures of student achievement.

 

· Don’t hit people. Or yell at people (Chris Christie), or make up facts (Stefan Pryor), or denigrate parents (Arne Duncan), or brag about taping the mouths of children shut (Michelle Rhee), or lie about test scores. Take your pick. But seriously, the crass manner in which the apostles of corporate education reform have “engaged” parents and teachers from Connecticut to California demonstrates how little respect they have for the communities or “children” whom they claim to value. See also: Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
Categories Arts Education, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Corporate Reformers, Humor, Rhee, Michelle

EduShyster: How to Make Your Toddler College and Career ready

By dianeravitch
February 28, 2014 //
17

It is never too soon to start Racing to the Top. It is never to soon to warn your toddler about the utter irrevance of studying useless subjects like Art History, Philosophy, or Literature.

Ask EduShyster. She will explain it to you.

“Chetty, chetty bang bang

“Chances are, your career-ready kindergartner LUVS his or her teacher. [Brief pause while writer shakes her head slowly and dramatically for effect.] You see, it may be time for a tough little talk with your youngster in which you explain that a *nice* teacher and a *highly effective* teacher are not one and the same, no matter how sweet she was when you had that little problem at nap time. Using brightly colored blocks (or the virtual equivalent on your at-home Amplify tablet), quickly and carefully demonstrate the Chetty principle to your youngster. See the great stack of yellow blocks? Those are your future earnings under a *high value teacher.* And that small tower of blue blocks? That’s the actual apartment building where you’ll live in your higher *SES* neighborhood, also home to the very bank at which you’ll amass savings at a higher rate.”

Read carefully for good advice from a billionaire who used to work at Enron.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Race to the Top

Dueling Rallies in Albany on Tuesday

By dianeravitch
February 27, 2014 //
106

Albany, Néw York, will be the scene of two competing rallies on Tuesday.

Eva Moskowitz is closing her charter schools on NYC and will bus thousands of children and parents to lobby for her charter chain.

On the same day, allies of Mayor de Blasio will assemble to urge the legislature to permit NYC to tax the richest–those who earn more than $500,000 annually–to pay for universal pre-K.

Place your bets, folks. Will it come down to a contest between which groups made the biggest campaign contributions? Or will the greater public good prevail?

Categories Bill de Blasio, Charter Schools, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Harlem Success Academy

“Democrats for Education Reform” Oppose de Blasio Plan to Fund Universal Pre-K

By dianeravitch
February 25, 2014 //
53

This morning, Joe Williams, the executive director of the hedge-fund managers’ “education reform” front group (“Democrats for Education Reform”) published an opinion piece in the New York Daily News opposing Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to fund universal pre-kindergarten by taxing incomes over $500,000. As Mayor de Blasio has pointed out, the incremental tax to pay for U-PK would be the equivalent of a soy latte at Starbucks every day, about $1,000 a year for the city’s wealthiest residents. But the hedge fund managers say no. This may explain why the California Democratic party called out DFER last year and urged them to stop calling themselves “Democrats” when they are fronts for Republicans and corporate interests. Imagine someone who has a take home pay of half a million a year unwilling to pay another $1,000 to ensure that every child in the city has pre-kindergarten class. How embarrassing for DFER. Why not just call themselves Hedge Funders for Education Reform and drop the pretense. They are making war on the signature proposal of the city’s wildly popular new progressive mayor.

 

The Alliance for Quality Education, which advocates on behalf of the city’s children, fired off a press release:

 

 

“On Pre-K, Parents Blast Corporate Education Front-Groups for ‘Putting the Rich First’ Over Students 

 

NY, NY— Following the Daily News op-ed by DFER’s Joe Williams, a national leader in the education corporate reform agenda, which revealed they are advocating against Mayor de Blasio’s tax plan to fund pre-K, Zakiyah Ansari, Advocacy Director for the Alliance for Quality Education, & Celia Green from New York Communities for Change released the following statement:

 

“Shame on the corporate front-groups for trying to get in the way of pre-K for New York City. They are simply ‘putting the rich first’ and shortchanging four year olds. The best plan would be to combine both the mayor’s and the governor’s plans—that would serve more kids in New York City and throughout the state. Mr. Williams is misrepresenting the facts when he says the Governor’s plan is more equitable; there is nothing equitable about leaving tens of thousands of four year olds out in the cold on pre-K. Every single child deserves to have access to high-quality pre-K, not just the rich who can afford to pay for it,” said Zakiyah Ansari, Advocacy Director for the Alliance for Quality Education. 

 

“The corporate reform agenda was rejected in New York City, and now their front-group spokesman is cozying up to the Governor and millionaires. Opposing the Mayor’s plan because it will slightly raise taxes is out-of-touch with not only families across the city, but with the countless wealthy individuals in the city who support the Mayor’s plan. The bottom line is that I’m tired of protesting cuts to programs or living in fear as to whether they will still be there next year– that’s why we need a reliable funding stream through a small tax increase on the wealthy,” said Celia Green, parent leader with New York Communities for Change.

 

Categories Bill de Blasio, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Democrats for Education Reform, New York City

Jason Stanford: Sandy Kress Registers to Lobby for Amplify and Pre-K Testing LINK ADDED!

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2014 //
38

Everyone–well, almost everyone–seems to think that pre-K is a great idea that will help children develop vocabulary and learn the social skills to prepare for kindergarten.

But, wait! Who knew that Race to the Top, round 2, included funding for pre-K testing?

Jason Stanford, intrepid Texas journalist, noticed that Sandy Kress registered to lobby for Rupert Murdoch’s Amplify, the big for-profit run by Joel Klein (and joined recently by ex-New Jersey Commissioner Chris Cerf).

Kress was the architect of No Child Left Behind and lobbies in Texas for Pearson. He persuaded the Texas legislature to commit nearly $500 million to Pearson for a five-year contract (a five-year contract in New York with Pearson cost “only” $32 million; Texas must get all the best questions and answers).

But the new big-bucks frontier is pre-K assessment.

Stanford writes:

“Making a 4-year-old take a high-stakes test at an age when it’s hard to make them take a nap sounds like heaping child abuse on top of a failed educational theory. But at least we can all rest assured that Kress has figured out a way to get his cut of the early-education bonanza. It’s time we saw schools as a place to create opportunities for children, not profiteers.”

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Race to the Top, Testing

Study: Kids in Kindergarten need Rigor

By dianeravitch
February 14, 2014 //
99

Edweek reports a new study that concludes kindergarten is too easy.

The little tykes need rigor, not play!

Clearly the kiddies need Common Core and a stiff dose of hard work. Too much play spoils them.

How about a rod?

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K

Ex-KIPP Teacher: Why I Could Not Teach Like a Champion

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2014 //
64

In this post, Rebecca Radding explains why she was asked to leave at the end of her third year as a Teach for America teacher in a KIPP school in Néw Orleans.

She could not teach like a champion.

She writes:

“I was never much of a champion, to be honest. KIPP defines a successful teacher as someone who keeps children quiet, teaches children how to answer each question on a test composed of arbitrary questions, and then produces high scores on this test. Mind you, I was teaching Pre-K and then kindergarten at a KIPP school in New Orleans—and these were still the metrics by which I was being evaluated. Since my definition of a successful early childhood classroom looked very different from silence and test prep, I had to figure out how to survive. I lasted three years.”

“By year three it had become very, very difficult for me to hide my disdain for the way the school was managed. In the previous two years, I’d fought hard for the adoption of a play-based early childhood curriculum, only to see it systematically dismantled by our 25-year old assistant principal. When this administrator told us that our student test scores would be higher if we used direct instruction, worksheets and exit tickets to check for their understanding, I lost my shit. I’m sorry, but five year olds don’t learn that way.

“I was fired a week later. Well, to be fair, I was told that I *wasn’t a good fit*—most likely because I talked about things like poverty and trauma and brain development, and also because at that point I knew significantly more about early childhood education and what young children actually needed to grow and develop than the administrators who ran the school. And that made me a threat.”

She goes on to explain what it means to “teach like a champion” and why she found it increasingly impossible to comply.

Categories Charter Schools, Childhood, Pre-K, K, KIPP Charter Schools, Teachers and Teaching

What Do a Law Professor and a Kindergarten Teacher Have in Common?

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2014 //
27

Ty Alper is a law professor at The University of California in Berkeley, one of the nation’s most prestigious law schools. He is running for school board in Berkeley. As he thought about the challenges of teaching today, he realized that his child’s kindergarten teacher was teaching some of the same skills he was teaching:

“Brook Pessin-Whedbee teaches five-year-olds at Rosa Parks. I teach law students in their mid-20s. As a kindergarten teacher, Brook teaches her students how to collaborate in the telling of stories, so they develop not only oral language and story writing skills but also the ability to form partnerships and work together. As a clinical law professor training and supervising law students in the complex representation of clients facing the death penalty, I teach my students how to collaborate in the telling of stories — stories of our clients’ lives, of unfair trials, of prosecutorial misconduct, etc. Brook and I have the same goals: to improve our students’ oral and written skills, and to teach them what it means to work productively as part of a team.”

He doesn’t think that the work they do can be measured by standardized tests. He is right.

Ty is a graduate of the public schools in Berkeley, so is his wife. Both his parents worked in public schools.

I bet he would be a great addition to the Berkeley school board.

Categories California, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Testing

NY Republicans, with Cuomo’s Silence, Block Tax for Pre-K

By dianeravitch
February 11, 2014 //
13

The leading education reform of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s campaign was universal pre-kindergarten, funded by a small tax increase on city residents with income over $500,000.

Governor Cuomo opposes any new taxes.

So do State Senate Republicans, who announced that the tax idea was dead.

Shame on them.

If residents of NYC want to tax themselves, why should they block it?

The real cost of the tax increase is a few dollars a day for the richest.

Categories Bill de Blasio, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Cuomo, Andrew, New York

Public Schools Across NY See State School Aid Decline Due to Cuomo Budget

By dianeravitch
February 9, 2014 //
19

I can’t find a link for this story, but I have the newspaper in front of me.

(Thanks to a reader, here is the link:

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/education/84-of-li-school-districts-to-get-less-aid-than-6-years-ago-under-cuomo-budget-plan-1.6973979)

It is dated February 7, 2014, Newsday (published on Long Island, New York), and it is the front-page headline:

“School Aid Slide: 84% of LI Districts to get less from state than 6 years ago.”

“Guv’s aides cite declining enrollment”

Inside, the story says that 68% of districts across the state will get less state aid under Cuomo’s formula in 2014-15 than they received in 2008-09.

That includes 78% of the districts in the Lower and mid-Hudson Valley, and 100% of New York City districts.

The governor’s staff attributed the lower funding to enrollment declines.

School leaders noted the increases in employee pay health insurance, pensions, heating expenses and said: “I can go from 25 students in a classroom to 19 students, and I still need a teacher in that classroom.”

The governor’s budget calls for a rise of 3.8% and includes $100 million for full-day pre-kindergarten, targeted to low-income students.

Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio of New York City have been at odds because de Blasio wants a dedicated tax on residents of New York City who earn over $500,000 a year to pay for pre-kindergarten rather than go hat in hand every year to Albany.

In addition, the governor will ask voters to approve a $2 billion bond issue for new technology.

One local school leader said:

“How are you going to have kids in full-day prekindergarten, and then have them come back to kindergartens that are half-day?”

Some districts may have to cut back to half-day sessions to save money.

Cuomo earlier imposed a 2% tax cap across the state, which districts cannot increase without a vote by 60% of voters.

Cuomo says he is the “students’ lobbyist.”

He views increases in aid as money for bloated administrative salaries and for greedy labor unions.

Categories Budget Cuts, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Cuomo, Andrew
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