Mike Klonsky knows who is sucking the oxygen out of classrooms and killing the joy of learning: Arne Duncan.
Don’t take Mike’s word for it. Arne confessed. He said he would give schools a one-year reprieve from his testing mandates. One year to breathe deep and suck in some real oxygen. Then he returns to take your oxygen away again. Makes sense, no? No.
Writing in the International Business Times, investigative journalist David Sirota reports that Microsoft admits keeping $92.9 billion offshore to avoid paying $29.6 billion in taxes, according to the most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
He writes:
“Microsoft Corp. is currently sitting on almost $29.6 billion it would owe in U.S. taxes if it repatriated the $92.9 billion of earnings it is keeping offshore, according to disclosures in the company’s most recent annual filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The amount of money that Microsoft is keeping offshore represents a significant spike from prior years, and the levies the company would owe amount to almost the entire two-year operating budget of the company’s home state of Washington.
“The company says it has “not provided deferred U.S. income taxes” because it says the earnings were generated from its “non-U.S. subsidiaries” and then “reinvested outside the U.S.” Tax experts, however, say that details of the filing suggest the company is using tax shelters to dodge the taxes it owes as a company domiciled in the United States.”
He adds:
“Apple and General Electric, which also employ offshore subsidiaries, are the only U.S.-based companies that have more money offshore than Microsoft, according to data compiled by Citizens for Tax Justice. In all, a May report by CTJ found that “American Fortune 500 corporations are likely saving about $550 billion by holding nearly $2 trillion of ‘permanently reinvested’ profits offshore.” The report also found that “28 of these corporations reveal that they have paid an income tax rate of 10 percent or less to the governments of the countries where these profits are officially held, indicating that most of these profits are likely in offshore tax havens.”
“Microsoft’s use of the offshore subsidiary tactics has exploded in the last five years, with the amount of Microsoft earnings shifted offshore jumping 516 percent since 2008, according to SEC filings.”
That kind of money, repatriated to the United States, could underwrite prenatal care for low-income women, provide early childhood education for all low-income children, underwrite medical clinics in low-income communities, and save public education in cities like Detroit and Philadelphia, where it is in dire peril. Imagine $550 billion invested in the well-being of our children! Imagine using that money to reduce our child poverty rate, which is currently the highest among the advanced nations of the world.
A comment from a reader, Joyce Murdock Feilke, in Texas:
“As a mental health professional in Texas schools, I can relate to this teacher’s comment: “The students are beginning to “check out”.
“Dissociation is how children often cope with stress which they are developmentally unprepared to process. When it becomes chronic in their daily environment, it can lead to mental illness, since it impacts their social and emotional development.
“The age inappropriate focus on performance and data with age inappropriate material and methods related to high stakes testing, has created an authoritarian environment of fear, intimidation, and boredom for children in elementary schools. This performance based reward/punishment environment is the same punitive classical conditioning (behaviorism) that is used to “train” dogs and zoo animals.
“I have observed the increasing symptoms of emotional desensitization in children in Texas elementary schools and spoken up and written articles about it for the past two years . After a time in this environment, many children will begin to look more like prisoners of war than normal healthy children. They lose vitality, spontaneity, and the ability for imaginative play. They have difficulty with scientific thinking and using higher level thinking skills. They become obedient and submissive to authority, and function more robotic. The symptoms of traumatic stress: Regression, Dissociation, and Constriction, are similar in PTSD, BOS, and “Battered Child Syndrome”: In these children’s daily school environment, it is not “post” as after acute trauma, but it is “chronic”, and has high potential to cause permanent psychological damage in the form of personality disorders (mental illness).
“What many of us in Texas schools originally thought to be soaring rates of High Functioning Autism (HFA), which also has symptoms of regression, dissociation, and constriction, is now thought to be stress related rather than HFA. For young children who still have a developing brain, being forced to function in a chronic state of hyper vigilance and/or hypoarousal or hyperarousal, will become “hard wired” into the personality. It changes their brain chemistry. CCSS is creating Anxiety Disorders and Depression that many children will suffer for a lifetime.
“Few politicians or “reformers” have listened to the voices of mental health professionals or educators who are warning about the potential for psychological harm in this CCSS (and Texas STAAR) environment. After writing numerous professional articles and reports for state legislators, only to have them ignored, I wrote the same message in the rhyme of Dr Suess: Here is my warning about CCSS and Texas STAAR, which I will keep repeating until someone listens:
This teacher laments the explosion of testing in school, which has reduced or eliminated time for play, recess, and activities. This is the brave new world of Common Core and PARCC:
H/she writes:
“The Common Core and PARCC will ruin education as we know it..And, of course, it is all part of the overall plan. My school starts PARCC this next school year. My 2.5 hour paper and pencil test (in only one subject).. will be replaced by three (3) two hour “tasks” in February. (My students will have to sit down at a computer THREE times at 2 hours each in February.) I’m not done yet….In May my students have to sit down at the computer for two (2) hour tests on the computer. My 2.5 hour paper and pencil test is now replaced by 10 hours of testing for only one subject. My students will also do the same amount of testing in three (3) other subjects. My students now will be completing 40 hours of testing on a computer in a given year. Oh, and my students are only 11 and 12 years old. They yearn to go outside and play kickball and basketball at recess. But, they have no recess. They only have 10 extra minutes after they finish lunch to play outside.
“I was blessed to teach in the what I now know were the “good ole days” of yesteryear. I dearly miss and mourn for those years. I was able to teach through fun and meaningful learning activities! We had TIME! (: As I go through my files over my almost 30 year career in the same subject and grade level, I don’t begin to get the material taught and covered as what I used to. I have thick files of learning activities that I never get to anymore. The curriculum director at our school has already said that he has no clue how he will get all that testing done for all of our kids. He said there is a 4 week window in February and April/May, so students will be gone at different times in my classroom. It will be a nightmare.
“It’s a shame that Pearson has to take away the childhood of our children, so they can earn their millions. I teach children. They are children. They love to run, play, draw, make faces, jump up and down, play tag, tease each other, hide, run around, make jokes, and enjoy being a child. With all of these hours of testing, I will not have time to teach anymore. The test preparation for a 2.5 hour test was bad enough, but this is totally ridiculous. Then, take the time to read over the Common Core and you will laugh to yourself. In Language Arts, they will be teaching adverbs to 3rd graders, with not much more emphasis on it after that. I think they know the Common Core will be the bullet that finally kills all public education in the U.S. The kids will not score well on this silly curriculum, which will be recorded on the teacher’s evaluation . . .and teachers will be let go. Yes, it’s all a part of the sad overall plan. It’s evident that the Common Core was created by people who knew very little about the developmental stages of our children. No one ever mentions Piaget anymore. It’s all so sad. But, Sasha and Alieah don’t have to follow these communist socialist education rules. Do they?”
I am late in reporting this story, but did not want to miss the opportunity to correct my oversight.
One of the truly bad ideas that has been adopted in various states is that third graders must pass a reading test or flunk. They can’t advance to fourth grade. This is part of the punitive test-based accountability of our times, which hurts children and trusts standardized tests more than teachers.
“The governor on Tuesday vetoed a bill allowing a student who fails the test to still be promoted if a team of parents and educators approve. Lawmakers applauded and cheered when the veto override passed 79-17 in the House and 45-2 in the Senate.
“Some parents had approached lawmakers to complain about the high-stakes testing, which was to be implemented for the first time this year.
“The legislative action means the bill immediately becomes law, directly affecting nearly 8,000 Oklahoma students who scored “unsatisfactory” on the test.”
Children who are flunked get badly discouraged. It is better to give children extra help, tutors, and reduced class sizes than inflict the pain and humiliation of leaving them behind their peers. Given the appropriate support, they will catch up.
Regular readers of this blog are familiar with the work of Amy Prime. (See here and here.)For the past ten years, she has taught second grade at Berg Elementary School in Newton, Iowa. she has written several articles about the problems and challenges of protecting children from the negative effects of test-centric reforms, some of which have been published in the local newspapers and reposted on this blog.
Last month she was called to a meeting with her principal, a human resources employee and the curriculum director. The meeting lasted about one minute. She was told that, although she is a highly proficient teacher with great grasp of content knowledge, she had not shown proper respect of others’ views. To “solve” this problem, they had decided to transfer her to a different school to teach 5th grade.
Understand that she is an early childhood educator who has taught either 1st or 2nd grade since 1998. Her masters is in Literacy Education and she is a reading specialist. Now she will be a 5th grade social studies teacher.
The official letter of transfer says that she was “chosen” for this position because of her command of the content knowledge and her demonstrated instructional competency. Her unusual strengths prepare her to be a successful fifth grade teacher of social studies.
Some of her colleagues have expressed their regret. They see this as a punitive transfer, intended to rebuke her for speaking out while others remained silent because they were afraid of the consequences.
Amy has been candid. she blogs for the state’s newspaper. She expresses her views at faculty meetings about developmentally inappropriate instruction and assessments. She has defended the freedom of teachers to voice their views and do their jobs professionally. She opted her own children out of state testing. She told her son’s kindergarten teacher that she didn’t want him taking part in weekly spelling tests.
Was she transferred to send a message to other teachers about the danger of speaking out? Was it an effort to silence Amy? Was it harassment intended to encourage her to move to another district?
Amy says she will be the best fifth-grade teacher possible. And while she is obviously not happy with the decision to shift her out of a job she loved and did well, she believes that the administrators are bowing to larger forces. She wrote me, “When districts are forced to comply with unrealistic goals for test scores and other artificial measures of success, it puts pressure on district leaders. They are much less likely to be team players with the teachers in their charge and instead some of them want obedience to methods that they feel will be successful in getting their schools off of government watch lists in danger of serious repercussions.” She fears that no one asked the most important question: “Is this what is best for kids?”
A few days ago, I posted the names of the members of the “work groups” that wrote the Common Core standards. There was one work group for English language arts and another for mathematics. There were some members who served on both work groups.
Altogether, 24 people wrote the Common Core standards. None identified himself or herself as a classroom teacher, although a few had taught in the past (not the recent past). The largest contingent on the work groups were representatives of the testing industry.
Mercedes Schneider looked more closely at the 24 members of the two work groups to determine their past experience as educators, with special attention to whether they had any classroom experience.
Here are a few noteworthy conclusions based on her review of the careers of the writers of the CCSS:
In sum, only 3 of the 15 individuals on the 2009 CCSS math work group held positions as classroom teachers of mathematics. None was a classroom teacher in 2009. None taught elementary or middle school mathematics. Three other members have other classroom teaching experience in biology, English, and social studies. None taught elementary school. None taught special education or was certified in special education or English as a Second Language (ESL).
Only one CCSS math work group member was not affiliated with an education company or nonprofit….
In sum, 5 of the 15 individuals on the CCSS ELA work group have classroom experience teaching English. None was a classroom teacher in 2009. None taught elementary grades, special education, or ESL, and none hold certifications in these areas.
Five of the 15 CCSS ELA work group members also served on the CCSS math work group. Two are from Achieve; two, from ACT, and one, from College Board.
One member of the work groups has a BA in elementary education but no record of ever having taught those grades.
Almost all members who had any classroom experience were high school teachers.
Schneider concludes:
My findings indicate that NGA and CCSSO had a clear, intentional bent toward CCSS work group members with assessment experience, not with teaching experience, and certainly not with current classroom teaching experience.
In both CCSS work groups, the number of individuals with “ACT” and “College Board” designations outnumbered those with documented classroom teaching experience.
The makeup of the work groups helps to explain why so many people in the field of early childhood education find the CCSS to be developmentally inappropriate. There was literally no one on the writing committee (with one possible exception) with any knowledge of how very young children learn. The same concern applies to those who educate children in the middle-school years or children with disabilities or English language learners. The knowledge of these children and their needs was not represented on the working group.
ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) is an organization founded in 1973 to promote free-market ideas throughout society. ALEC has about 2,000 members who belong to state legislatures. It is funded by major corporations. Its purpose is to write model legislation that members can bring back to their state, to spread the gospel of ALEC. It supports charters, vouchers, online charters–all forms of privatization. It opposes collective bargaining. It does not believe in due process rights for teachers or any form of job security for public employees. It does not support local control, as it promotes laws that allow state commissions to override decisions by local school boards if they deny charters to private groups.
Among its proposals is the third grade reading guarantee, in which children are flunked if they don’t pass the third grade reading test. What this has to do with free-market capitalism is beyond my understanding. It is punitive towards little children, putting more faith in a test than in teachers’ judgement. There is no research to support this policy, but we know already that zealots are unimpressed by research or evidence.
Here is a comment by faithful reader Chiara Duggan of Zohio:
“This is the ALEC model bill on high stakes testing in third grade.
“It’s nearly identical to Ohio’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee:
“C) Beginning with the 20XX-20XY school year, if the student’s reading deficiency, as identified in paragraph (a), is not remedied by the end of grade 3, as demonstrated by scoring at Level 2 or higher on the state annual accountability assessment in reading for grade 3, the student must be retained.
“Just shameful that adult lawmakers were purchased by this lobbying group, and third graders will be paying the price.
http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/the-a-plus-literacy-act/”
Principals, teachers, and parents in New York state complained that the Common Core tests for grades 3-8 were too long. The tests for math and reading together take about 7 hours. Commissioner John King responded in a recent speech at New York University that students were spending “less than 1%” of the school year, which is sort of an odd way to explain (defend) 7 hours of testing for little children.
One of our readers decided to compare the amount of time required foe Common Core testing to the amount of time required for other examinations typically administered to college applicants or adults:
So I was curious about other standardized tests and how they compare to the tests they expect 8-13 years olds to do. Why would an 8-year old need to sit for longer than 7 hours to see if they can read and do math which is longer than every test until you get to the NYS bar exam.
GRE:
The overall testing time for the computer-based GRE® revised General Test is about three hours and 45 minutes. There are six sections with a 10-minute break following the third section. https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/about/content/cbt/
SAT:
The SAT is made up of 10 sections:
A 25-minute essay
Six 25-minute sections (mathematics, critical reading and writing)
Two 20-minute sections (mathematics, critical reading and writing)
A 10-minute multiple-choice writing section
Total test time: 3 hours and 45 minutes
You’ll also get three short breaks during the testing, so don’t forget to bring a snack!
http://sat.collegeboard.org/about-tests/sat/faq
LSAT:
The test consists of five 35-minute sections of multiple-choice questions. Four of the five sections contribute to the test taker’s score. These sections include one reading comprehension section, one analytical reasoning section, and two logical reasoning sections. The unscored section, commonly referred to as the variable section, typically is used to pretest new test questions or to preequate new test forms. The placement of this section in the LSAT will vary. The score scale for the LSAT is 120 to 180. A 35-minute writing sample is administered at the end of the test. The writing sample is not scored by LSAC, but copies are sent to all law schools to which you apply.
http://www.lsac.org/jd/help/faqs-lsat
MCAT (Medical school)
Total seated time 5 hours and 10 minutes and total content time 4 hours and 5 minutes.
https://www.aamc.org/students/download/63060/data/mcatessentials.pdf
NY Bar Exam:
Schedule for First Day of the Examination (Tuesday):
In the morning session, which begins at 9:00 A.M. and ends at 12:15 P.M., applicants must complete three essays and the 50 multiple choice questions in three hours and 15 minutes. Although applicants are free to use their time as they choose, the Board estimates an allocation of 40 minutes per essay and 1.5 minutes per multiple choice question.
In the afternoon session, which begins at 2:00 P.M. and ends at 5:00 P.M., applicants must complete the remaining two essay questions and the MPT in three hours. Again, although applicants are free to use their time as they choose, the National Conference of Bar Examiners developed the MPT with the intention that it be used as a 90-minute test. Therefore, the Board recommends that applicants allocate 90 minutes to the MPT and 45 minutes to each essay.
Schedule for Second Day of the Examination – MBE (Wednesday):
The second day of the examination is the Multistate Bar Examination. The Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) is a six-hour, two-hundred question multiple-choice examination covering contracts, torts, constitutional law, criminal law, evidence, and real property. The examination is divided into two periods of three hours each, one in the morning [9:30am to 12:30pm] and one in the afternoon [2:00pm to 5:00pm], with 100 questions in each period.
A reader explains how the states’ demand for standardized testing may do harm to gifted children:
“For highly gifted children, sometimes called highly sensitive children, who have high spatial intelligence, this testing is a nightmare. They will usually have signs of ADD or ADHD by 2nd or 3rd grade. That does not mean they have a disorder, but are just wired differently. They are the ones who will be artists, designers, engineers, and inventors. They need to use their imagination and curiosity to “create”. However, sitting through the traditional drill and kill of the test obsessed school environment will cause them to lose imagination and spontaneity. They are the children are the most damaged from the chronic traumatic stress of this environment, and will lose their “gifts”. Depression and anxiety are common for these children unless they can be given freedom for self expression, such as Montessori.
“Your child, if diagnosed with a disability such as ADHD, or ASD, etc. is eligible for the 504 Program or possibly SpEd services and may be allowed special accommodations for testing. Have you discussed this with the school psychologists?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 