Archives for category: Common Core
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Parent: Children With Disabilities Need a True Voice on the Regents

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2014 //
4

Children with disabilities have many struggles to deal with. Public officials should do their best to remove the obstacles these children confront, not add to them.

This is a statement written by Bianca Tanis, a parent of a child with disabilities.

Here is an excerpt:

“As of Tuesday, 2/11, Members of the NYS Assembly completed interviews of both new and incumbent candidates for the 4 positions that are up for re-appointment on the NYS Board of Regents. In light of the failure of the Board of Regents to heed parent concerns, coupled with a Regents Task Force Report that is at best misinformed and at worst duplicitous, the legislature must elect new leadership to the Board. When the legislators vote to decide who will fill these 4 spots on March 11th, parents and educators will be watching.

“Parents of students with disabilities have been vocally opposed to not only the flawed implementation of the CCLS, but also the deep flaws within the standards themselves and the ways in which they promote poor instructional practice for special education students. One of the Regents up for reappointment is Christine Cea, the Regent from Staten Island who calls herself the “voice of disabilities.” You can watch her interview with members of the Assembly Education Committee here.

“There is little doubt that as a parent of a child with a disability and a researcher for the New York State Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities , Regent Cea has the best intentions. However, after watching her interview, it is difficult to believe that she is the most qualified person to represent the educational needs of students with disabilities in New York.

“Regent Cea side stepped questions and gave vague, general answers. When asked where in her opinion, special education is going and what direction it should take, Ms. Cea offered the less than insightful response, “We are seeing great strides in getting people independent and doing more and more.” When asked what she hopes to accomplish in her next term if elected, Regent Cea responded, “I moved very comfortably into the spot of being the disability voice and I just hope to do more…I hope to take this transition piece (transition to the CC) and make it into something special.” Special?

“Perhaps most disturbing was Regent Cea’s complete and utter lack of understanding of the ways in which the CCLS are impacting students with disabilities in the classroom.”

Tanis then reprints the interview.

Categories Common Core, New York, Special Education

David Greene Deconstructs the New York Times’ Bizarre Article about “Left” Opposition to Common Core

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2014 //
44

David Greene asks a logical question: Does the New York Times know its left from its right?

This is a confused and confusing portrait of the vigorous, noisy, and numerous activists who are fighting Common Core and its testing and scripted modules in New York.

The article leaves out the parent and educator groups across the state: the BATs, the Long Island parent opt-out groups, Leonie Haimson’s Class size Matters, and many more.
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There is a good quote from Carol Burris, but no mention of the fact that she speaks for about 40% of the state’s principals.

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute–beloved source of NY Times’ quotes–is described as a “public policy group” in DC, with no reference to the it pronounced ideological bent, their membership in ALEC, their receipt of Gates’ largesse to promote the Common Core.

This CAN’T be the newspaper of record.

Categories Common Core

Long Island Resistance Condemns Regents’ Failure to Fix Common Core

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2014 //
11

New York parents, especially in the politically powerful suburbs of Long Island and Westchester-Putnam, are outraged by the failure of the New York Board of Regents to take more decisive steps to fix the Common Core.

They want a thorough review of the standards by New York practitioners, and not those picked by CC-loving Commissioner John King. They want a true moratorium on the CC testing until the standards are made developmentally appropriate. Some want to eliminate them and use New York’s existing standards.

The consensus seems to be that the Regents tried to pull the wool over the eyes of the public, but parents were not fooled by half-measures.

Categories Common Core, New York

Illinois: PARCC Field Tests Begin, Not Auspiciously

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2014 //
47

A reader sends this comment:

“It is starting in Illinois with the PARCC fled tests coming next month . Technology coordinators and classroom teachers have been trying the online sample field test questions and are appalled at how developmentally inappropriate the tasks and questions are for eight, nine, and ten year olds. I am all for rigor. Ask my students and their parents. Rigor does not mean developmentally appropriate.

“One ELA test can be as long as 120 minutes with only one three minute break allowed. During that break the students may not communicate with each other. They are nine and taking a test that for some will take 120 minutes and others will finish early and sit for 120 minutes. This is outrageous!

“Plus, all staff members involved will sign a one page Security Agreement. If you are found in violation of it, you may lose you license. The manual and agreement state that you must have your full attention on the testing environment. The manual states that the proctor may not read, grade papers, check email, etc. while the 120 minute test is being taken. So you will just stare at you students while they struggle through the nightmare.

“This must be stopped!”

Categories Common Core, Testing

What Will Happen When Common Core Tests Go National

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2014 //
63

Experienced curriculum designer Robert Shepherd wrote the following prediction after reading this post:

“The oligarchs who got together in a back room and decided that we were going to have

a. invariant, top-down national standards, and
b. these ridiculous new tests

“have grown used to absolute power. They have grown used to implementing policy in their companies, for example, and having people accept it because they have no choice but to do so.

“And so it came as quite a shock to them when, after the fiasco of the New York test, parents and teachers and students in New York state said, almost unanimously, “This is insane and has to stop.”

“Predictably, they ignored the lowly teachers and students. They are trying to get away with ignoring the parents.

“Who are these mere mortals to question their judgment?

“Those guys have an interesting experience coming, for when these tests roll out nationwide, there will be hell to pay. Rarely in public policy and never in the history of U.S. education will we have seen the like of what is about to happen.It’s going to be a policy supernova. Or, to use a different metaphor,

“I suspect that when the ed deform monster attacks the nation’s children with these tests, that will be when the villagers grab their shovels and pitchforks and track the monster to its lair.

“Woe unto those defending it when that happens.”

Categories Common Core, Testing

Jonathan Pelto: Guess Which Corporate Sponsor Pays for PBS’ “The Teaching Channel”?

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2014 //
73

Jonathan Pelto points out that one of the most powerful mainstream media voices promoting the Common Core is PBS “The Teaching Channel.”

Who sponsors the program?

One guess.

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Grace Got It Right: What Education is for

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2014 //
11

After reading a letter by a student named Grace, this reader pointed out a crucial diggerence in purpose: the authors of the Common Core want to rank and rate everyone, but many educators have a humane vision, not of winners and losers, but of self-directed human beings.

“Even kids like Grace know that an individualized, self-directed, self-paced approach is the real future of education. Helping kids learn how to live happy, healthy, and fulfilling lives in support of themselves and others should be our real educational goals. If kids leave the public school educational system knowing how to make informed decisions, knowing how to solve real problems, knowing how to get along with themselves and others, knowing how to take care of themselves physically and emotionally, and with their curiosity and creativity still intact, they will be able to accomplish whatever they set out to do. Common Core does not promote any of these outcomes; we need to create a system of education that does.”

Categories Common Core

The BATs Have Their Own Common Core

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2014 //
7

This is the BATs’ Common Core of beliefs and values.

It probably won’t go far because no one can make any money by adopting it. It won’t sell new hardware or software. It won’t sell new tests or textbooks. It won’t make any entrepreneurs rich. Not much of a future in this brave new market-based world.

Categories Common Core, Education Industry, For-Profit

David Lyell Explains Why L.A. Is Jeopardizing the Future with Hasty iPad Purchase

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2014 //
21

David Lyell–a classroom teacher and UTLA officer– here describes the ongoing iPad fiasco in Los Angeles.

Why did the district commit to spend $1 billion on iPads? To test the Common Core.

Are tests more valuable to students than smaller classes, experienced teachers, and the arts, all of which are being sacrificed for iPads?

Was the Pearson content reviewed?

Who is investigating how decisions were made?

Why, the board. No, not the board. The Inspector General. Does he report to those who made the decision he is investigating?

He writes:

“The district only reluctantly admitted to paying for a three-year software license before it had even actually seen what it was purchasing (L.A. Times: http://lat.ms/1akJZgA).

“It was also recently revealed that some staff members were given free iPads a year before the board voted for Phase I of this project, at a pitch meeting by software peddler Pearson. (KPCC: http://bit.ly/1dKDm7S).

“So, who’s investigating? LAUSD’s Office of the Inspector General. In other words, when possible impropriety arises, the district has authority to investigate itself.

“As if all of this isn’t alarming enough, LAUSD announced this past week that the only committee charged with overseeing the iPad rollout is set to be disbanded. (LATimes: http://lat.ms/1aFsYeO).”

Categories Common Core, Los Angeles, Technology, Computers

Diagram of the Brain of a Reformer

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2014 //
14

These two teachers have discovered the brain of a reformer and can demonstrate the comparison between the brain of a reformer and the brain of those who need reforming. Very impressive.

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reformers
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