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Nicholas Tampio Slams ESSA As Common Core in Disguise

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2017 //
11

At a meeting at Fordham University, Professor Nicholas Tampio slammed ESSA as the same old Common Core, with lipstick. If Nick sends me his speech, I will post it in full.

https://news.fordham.edu/politics-and-society/professor-slams-essa-common-core-another-name/

Here is the university press release:

Nicholas Tampio, Ph.D., associate professor of political science, made an impassioned plea for New York State to reject participation in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), saying it does little or nothing to stem the growing takeover of education by the federal government.

Speaking at Fordham Law School as part of the Education Law Collaborative’s first education law conference, Tampio made the case that, despite ESSA provisions that allow states to opt out of Common Core, as a practical matter it is no different.

“ESSA requires states to remain within the standards, testing, and accountability paradigm . . . if they want Title I funds.”
That means that if a state wants to follow a more original model of educating, such as the John Dewey model, they forfeit federal funding. “John Dewey said standardized tests can only be useful to help us figure out how to help a particular child, but they shouldn’t be used to rank children, because children have all sorts of special gifts, talents, and interests.”

In his talk, “ESSA and the Myth of Return to Local Control,” Tampio traced the evolution of education reform in the United States, including the programs Nation at Risk (1983), Improving America’s Schools Act (1994), No Child Left Behind (2001), and Race to the Top (2009). ESSA, which was signed by President Obama in 2015, ostensibly reversed the trend toward federalizing education, but Tampio said it has not been effective.

That’s important, he said, because. A top-down approach squelches local control, and students should feel like their voices and opinions are valuable.

“Part of a democratic education is to get kids to learn about the world, and feel empowered that they have a voice in it,” he said.

Local control also benefits low income and minority communities, he said. He cited examples from Kitty Kelly Epstein’s A Different View of Urban Schools: Civil Rights, Critical Race Theory, and Unexplored Realities (Counterpoints, 2012).

“All the research confirms that when parents are involved, students do better. And yet, if they don’t have a voice other than what color cupcakes to bring to the PTA, they’re not going to be active in [local]school boards,” he said.

In New York, the Department of Education has renamed Common Core the “Next Generation Learning Standards,” but on issues of standards and accountability, Tampio said, they’re largely the same. Seventy-sevent percent of the existing Common Core standards will have no change whatsoever, and “clarifications” have been issued for just 15.9 percent of them. In order to receive $1.6 billion in federal funds, the state must comply with the changes and submit them to the federal government next month.

ESSA states that there is “no requirement, direction, or mandate to adopt Common Core standards,” but Tampio says that does not help states rid themselves of Common Core standards already in place. ESSA’s language on standards requires states to maintain “challenging academic content standards.”

“When ESSA was signed in 2015, most states already adopted Common Core. The question [should be]what is the federal government going to do to help facilitate states trying to exit the Common Core?” he said.

“[It] is an incredible burden for any state to choose an alternative, and I don’t think we’re going to see any.

“I’d be delighted if they did, because it would be a road map for every other state on how to do it,” he said.

Tampio, an education activist, claims that Common Core standards, with its test-based model, do little to develop creativity and independent thinking in developing children.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Education Industry, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Testing

Erik Mears: Why I Teach My Students in the Bronx About the Awesomeness of KIPP

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2017 //
25

A few days ago, I posted a story about a high school teacher in the Bronx who was annoyed because he felt compelled to teach his public school students a story in a textbook that celebrated KIPP and put down their neighborhood.

The story attracted a lot of attention, and the teacher Erik Means wanted to answer your questions in this follow up post.

On August 25th, you linked to my Counterpunch article, which criticizes HMH for publishing a pro-charter essay in its 12th Grade Collections textbook. In part because of comments that a few of your readers posted, I feel obliged to make some clarifications:

When a school such as mine purchases HMH Collections, they buy textbooks for Grades 9-12, as well as electronic resources and supplementary materials – including a 180-day pacing guide. A set of scripted, Common Core-aligned questions follows each text. You buy these books because they are Common Core-aligned, and because they feature an array of shorter fiction and non-fiction texts that will help students practice for the Regents exam.

My administrators expected me to stick to this textbook, and use few “outside texts,” for these reasons. If I raised an issue with any text, they would tell me to teach it alongside a “counter-text” that provides a differing point of view. (I wrote the Counterpunch piece, in part, to create such as “counter-text” – since none really existed to suitably counter Gladwell’s claims and omissions).

To their credit, my administrators allow me to script my own questions. They respect me, my colleagues, and our academic freedom. They are also hard-working, good-hearted professionals who care deeply about the students and teachers in our building.

Do they require me to teach “Marita’s Bargain?” Given that they expect me to make my way through the textbook, as the year progresses, and only exclude certain texts because of time constraints, the answer is “yes.” You do not omit the first text in a textbook (it appears on pages 3-14) because of time constraints.

But the major reason why I teach “Marita’s Bargain” is because it is so glaring, in a literal sense. Throughout the year, all of my students will eventually leaf through the textbook, and see, in prominent letters, on page 5, “Just over ten years into its existence, KIPP has become one of the most desirable public schools in New York City.” They will see a photo of blighted South Bronx buildings on page 9. And they will see “Our kids are spending fifty to sixty percent more time learning than the traditional public school student” in prominent letters, on page 12.

My students would rightly wonder why I am skipping an article about schools in their community, when it appears as the first text in our textbook. If they read the most salient parts of the article, they might even suspect that I am skipping “Marita’s Bargain” because I am a self-interested public school teacher who wishes to obscure the miracles that KIPP charter schools are performing in their own community.

Thus, the fact that “Marita’s Bargain” appears so early in my textbook demands that I address it in some way. And if the text were not so prominent, I would not teach it; not in 100 years.

For my own part, I guide my students through “Marita’s Bargain” as critically as possible. But anyone who suspects that HMH would encourage teachers to do so can read its scripted questions, and judge for themselves (see pages 15-16):

Click to access maritas_bargain.pdf

Moreover, although most NYC ELA teachers are excellent, few of them are as knowledgeable about education reform as I am. “Pushing back” against Gladwell, as I do in class, requires a certain esoteric knowledge that many teachers lack – and this hardly discredits them as ELA instructors.

In this letter, I have written more about myself and my school than is my wont in a public forum. I have done so in order to make clear that my administrators acted, more or less rationally, in purchasing HMH Collections, and defensibly, in expecting me to teach most of its texts. I do not believe that they deserve much blame.

In my Counterpunch piece, I wrote primarily about the flaws and omissions of Gladwell’s piece itself. I attempted to demonstrate that the text failed to achieve a certain standard of quality, and that by deduction, HMH must have selected it for propagandistic purposes. This text should not be in my, or any, textbook, unless it is to be used as an example of certain defects. HMH did not wish this latter, if its scripted questions are any indication. I fault HMH for including the text in its Collections textbook, and for selling it to many schools throughout New York City. I fault Gladwell, to a lesser extent, for writing it in the first place.

Sincerely,

Erik Mears

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Education Industry, KIPP Charter Schools

Robert Shepherd: How the Common Core Killed Teaching and Learning

By dianeravitch
August 26, 2017 //
179

Robert Shepherd, teacher, author, curriculum developer, assessment expert, etc., left the following comment on the blog about the deadening effects of the Common Core on teachers and students:


The biggest tragedy that has occurred in the last few decades in our schools is that they have been to an enormous extent turned into test prep organizations under the standards and testing regime. This is true in both public and charter schools. “Reformers” successfully rebranded the national standards by simply changing their name. So, for example, in Florida, the Common Core State Standards–unchanged–are now called the Mathematics Florida Standards and the Language Arts Florida Standards, but make no mistake about it, these are the CCSS.

The public largely believes that the standards and testing have been a good thing, and that’s because simple arguments can be made for them: who doesn’t want “high standards”? Who doesn’t want “accountability”? These phrases are easily promulgated sound bites. But go into K-12 classrooms, and what you find is that where in the past students were writing essays and reading novels and nonfiction books and short stories and plays, they are now doing exercise sets based on the questions on the standardized tests.

An English department chairperson recently told me that this is ALL she does until the kids take the test in April or May–test prep exercises, every day, for almost the entire school year. This teacher’s approach is now the norm.

Traditional materials for teaching English language arts have been largely replaced by ones that emphasize exercise sets in which each exercise is narrowly focused on practicing one skill described by one standard. What particular readings are involved has become largely irrelevant under this regime–any reading will do as long as it is accompanied by an exercise for practicing standard x or y. The content of these readings is often completely random–a piece about Harriet Tubman here, one about invasive plant species there–and so there is no sustained work in a particular context–that of a novel or a unit on some nonfiction topic–even though brains are connection machines, learning happens when it is connected to previous learning, and comprehension is largely contextual.

Where in the past, a teacher would announce that he or she was starting a unit on Robert Frost or the literature of the Civil War (Crane, Bierce, etc.), now it’s, “OK, class. We’re going to work on our recognizing the main idea skills.” But there’s a problem: There is no such thing as a generalized recognizing the main idea skill. Such a thing is entirely mythical, like the fairies that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed in. Meaning is contextual, and arriving at the main idea or main ideas (for often, there are several) depends upon particular knowledge of the text’s aims and context.

The CCSS for ELA give lip service to substantive reading and content knowledge, but the truth is that on the ground, where it matters, the national standards and testing regime has replaced traditional instruction in English with test prep exercises, and this has been a calamity of enormous proportions. It’s meant the end of the profession of English teaching as I knew it. I know many, many English teachers who have quit or changed fields because of this. They are sick of being pressured by administrators to do all test prep all the time. But the administrators are simply doing what they are incentivized to do. They are evaluated primarily on the test scores that they deliver, for who doesn’t want to be principal of an A school?

With this going on, worrying about other matters is like spending one’s time polishing the bright work on a sailboat when there is a hole in the hull.

Except in isolated classrooms where brave teachers are continuing to teach despite the standards and testing regime, the teaching of English in K-12 is dead.

RIP

Categories Common Core, Teachers and Teaching

Bianca Tanis: Don’t Let New York Destroy Early Childhood Education with 75 Standards

By dianeravitch
August 26, 2017 //
7

Bianca Tanis teaches young children in New York. She is a founding member of NYSAPE, New York Dtate Alliance of Parents and Educators. She is also a teacher of children with special needs.

Frustrated by the state’s indifference to the needs of young children, she wrote this post and interviewed teachers about what matters most for teaching and learning: PLAY.

Categories Accountability, Childhood, Common Core, Education Industry, Play, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Leonie Haimson: Test Scores in New York State Are Meaningless, Again

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2017 //
28

Leonie Haimson assesses the latest test scores from New York. New York is still using the Common Core, but with a new name, so of course the majority of students in the state “failed,” which was the purpose of the Common Core standards, to make public schools look bad so that privatization would be easier to sell to the public.

Leonie has something that no one in the New York State Education Department has: a historical memory, clear knowledge of the frequent changes in cut scores, constant manipulation of the data.

Leonie writes:

“The NY state and city test scores were released this week. Proficiency rates statewide increased again though by a smaller amount than last year. In English Language Arts, the percentage of students in grades 3-8 who scored at proficient levels increased by an average of 1.9 percentage points; from 37.9% in 2016 to 39.8%. In math, the students who scored at proficiency rose to 40.2%, up 1.1 points from 29.1% last year.

“In NYC the increases were a little larger: a gain of more than two points in ELA proficiency to 40.6% and 1.4 points to 37.8% proficiency in math.

“Commissioner Elia, Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Farina claimed that the increase in proficiency since 2013 was strong evidence that our students and schools are making progress.

“Yet the reality is that the trends over the last 15 years have not matched any of the trends on the more reliable national test called the NAEPs, for either NYC or the state as a whole.

“In fact, the NY State Education Department has appeared unable since 2002 to produce a reliable test and score it consistently enough to allow one to assess if there’s been any sort of improvement in our schools. Instead, Commissioners and their staff have repeatedly changed cut scores and set proficiency rates to make political points.

“There are many ways to show increases in proficiency — a metric notoriously easy to manipulate — including making the tests easier, shorter, giving them untimed, and/or changing the scoring by lowering the raw scores to scale scores or the cut scores need for proficiency. The state has used all these tricks over time.”

Read it all. She nails the fraud perpetrated by the state and ignored by journalists.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Education Reform, Fraud, New York, Standardized Testing

Bookshelf: Steve Nelson’s “First Do No Harm: Progressive Education in a Time of Existential Risk”

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2017 //
38

You know how you can pick up a book, start reading, start annotating with underlining and exclamation points, then realize you are marking up almost every word?

That is Steve Nelson’s “First Do No Harm.” It is chicken soup for the educator’s soul.

Nelson recently retired as head of the progressive Calhoun School in New York City. He also just joined the board of the Network for Public Education because he wants to devote his time to the fight for better public schools for all children.

He describes progressive education as ways to engage children in thinking critically, asking questions, and engaging creatively in play and work. He knows it is endangered, even though children thrive when given the opportunity to love learning.

He recognizes the soul-deadening approach of no-excuses charters and suggests that they exhibit unconscious racism. Maybe not always unconscious.

He points out that affluent communities think they have great public schools, without recognizing that their schools are gifted by the privilege of parents and the community. The same is true of elite private schools, whose students are drawn mostly from wealthy families with every financial advantage.

Every effort to standardize education–whether it is NCLB or Common Core– robs children of the chance to think for themselves. Such top-down programs demand conformity, not critical thinking or creativity. Indeed they punish students who think differently.

Nelson goes into great detail about the harm inflicted on children by no-excuses charter schools like KIPP and Democracy Prep.

He stands strongly against vouchers, which typically are used in religious schools, where children are subject to indoctrination.

Nelson understands the link between education and democracy, education for freedom.

I recommend this book to you.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Childhood, Common Core, Creativity, Discipline, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Testing

Nancy Bailey: Don’t Fall for Common Core Infomercials

By dianeravitch
August 16, 2017 //
32

Nancy Bailey did not like Dana Goldstein’s article in the New York Times About teaching writing. It sounded to her like an infomercial for the Common Core. In this post, she offers 15 experienced-based ways to help children learn to write and express themselves.

“New York Times journalist Dana Goldstein, who isn’t a teacher but likes to write about them, recently wrote “Why Kids Can’t Write,” an infomercial for Common Core.

“A takeaway from the article is that Common Core may not be working to teach writing, but it’s the teacher’s fault. The real danger here, however, is the idea that student words don’t matter–that writing instruction is only about mechanics.

“Goldstein highlights Dr. Judith C. Hochman who founded a nonprofit called The Writing Revolution. Hochman believes in teaching children writing mechanics and she poo poos student self-expression. She just doesn’t think it’s necessary.

“If that sounds eerily like the College Board’s David Coleman, chief in charge of Common Core, who said no one gives a “shit” about what students write, well, surprise! Coleman sits on The Writing Revolution’s Board of Trustees.

“Goldstein has gotten pushback by Furman education professor P.L Thomas in “Why Journalists Shouldn’t Write About Education,” and Jim Horn’s “Bad Writer? Blame a Teacher, Says Goldstein.” Those authors especially note the disgraceful way Goldstein slams teachers.

“Kate Walsh, who also doesn’t like teachers or student self-expression, is mentioned in the article. Walsh is with the National Council of Teacher Quality (NCTQ), highlighted in Goldstein’s article. This is a group supported by Bill Gates that pretends to know what makes good teachers.

“I have known many career English teachers. I don’t remember one of them not being confident in their ability to teach writing.”

If you want some sound ideas about teaching writing, read Bailey’s post.

Categories Common Core, Teachers and Teaching

EdNext Poll: Support for Charter Schools Plummets

By dianeravitch
August 15, 2017 //
14

Education Next is a publication funded by conservative foundations and staffed by conservative editors and writers. It supports charters, vouchers, school choice, high-stakes testing, the commodification of education, and the education industry.

Here are the results of its latest poll:

“The 2017 Education Next annual survey of American public opinion on education shows public support for charter schools has dropped, even as opposition to school vouchers and tax credits for private-school scholarships has declined. Opposition to the Common Core State Standards seems to have finally leveled off. When the “Common Core” name is not mentioned, support for the same standards across states rises among both Democrats and Republicans. Meanwhile, support for the federal role in education policy has waned. This year’s poll also finds that President Trump’s policy preferences widen the partisan divide on issues such as charter schools, Common Core, tax credits, and merit pay for teachers.

“Among the key findings:

“Charter school support drops. In a dramatic change of opinion over the past year, support for charter schools has declined by 12 percentage points, from 51% last year to only 39% this year (36% opposed). Support has fallen by 13 percentage points among Republicans and by 11 percentage points among Democrats, to 47% and 34% support respectively, leaving the partisan gap on the issue largely unchanged. Support for charters among blacks has dropped from 46% to 37% and among Hispanics from 44% to 39%.

“Opposition to private school choice declines despite partisan differences. Opposition to universal vouchers, which give all families a wider choice, has declined from 44% to 37%, while support for vouchers targeted to low-income parents has increased by six percentage points (43% in 2017 up from 37% in 2016). However, an analysis of individuals by political party reveals that support for universal vouchers has increased by 13 percentage points among Republicans (to 54%) but fallen by 9 percentage points (to 40%) among Democrats, whereas in 2016, Democrats were more supportive than Republicans of universal vouchers by an 8-percentage point margin. Opposition to tax-credit funded scholarships has declined from 29% to 24%.

“Support for national standards rises while opposition to Common Core levels off. Though support for Common Core plummeted between 2013 and 2016, the downward trend has leveled off, with support standing at 41% (38% opposed) in 2017, virtually the same as in 2016. Support for standards that are the same in all states is, at 61%, 20 percentage points higher when the name is not mentioned (6 percentage points higher than in 2016). While there remains a partisan divide in support for Common Core (32% in favor among Republicans and 49% among Democrats), support rises to 64% and 61%, respectively, when the name is not mentioned, eliminating the partisan gap.

“Support for local control of schools is on the rise. Although a plurality of the public continues to think accountability policy should mostly be a state responsibility, the latest poll numbers show that the public has shifted away from federal towards local control of schools. Only 36% of the public think the federal government should play the largest role in setting standards, down 5 percentage points from 2015; only 13% think it should identify failing schools, also down 5 percentage points; and only 16% think the federal government should be responsible for fixing schools, down 4 percentage points. Democratic support for federal decision-making has dropped by 8, 6, and 7 percentage points, respectively. The share of the public thinking these policies should be a local responsibility has risen by 4, 6, and 7 percentage points, respectively, for the three areas.

“Information about cost and earnings has little impact on college-going preferences–except among Hispanics. The latest poll shows that two-thirds of the public want their child to pursue a 4-year degree, while only 22% prefer a 2-year degree. Among white respondents with a 4-year college degree, 88% want their child to pursue a 4-year degree, compared to 57% of white respondents without a 4-year college degree. Most respondents, when they are informed as to the average costs and earnings associated with 2-year versus 4-year degrees, do not change their preferences. For Hispanics, however, providing both types of information shifts their preference for a 4-year degree to 72%, from 61% when no information is provided. This shift reverses the white-Hispanic gap in preferences for a 4-year degree. These findings emerge from an experiment where a randomly chosen group within the sample receives financial information while another group does not.

“The Trump Effect. On four issues—Common Core, charter schools, tax credits, and merit pay for teachers—the poll examines whether President Trump’s endorsement of a policy has a polarizing effect on public opinion by telling half of the sample the president’s position while not supplying this information to the other. EdNext conducted similar experiments in 2009 and 2010 during President Obama’s first two years in office. In 2009, Obama enjoyed a period of bipartisan support during which he moved public opinion toward his position, though the effect waned in 2010. Trump has not enjoyed such a “honeymoon” period (see figure). When informed of Trump’s position, Republicans move toward it on three of the four issues, including a 15 percentage-point increase in support for charter schools. However, Trump fails to persuade Democrats, who move away from the president’s position on two of the four issues, including a 14 percentage-point decrease in support for merit pay. These offsetting effects leave overall public opinion on these issues largely unchanged.”

One can draw different conclusions from this poll, but I am impressed by the stunning drop in public support for privately managed charter schools. As the public learns more about them, it likes them less. The steady drumbeat of charter scandals is getting through to the public. The scandals in Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Arizona, California, and elsewhere may be taking a toll on public estimation of charters. There is a glimmering of understanding that charters are unaccountable and that every dollar for a charter is taken away from public schools. The public is beginning to wonder about the value of funding two systems, one selective, the other open to all. One subject to democratic governance, the other controlled by private, self-selected boards.

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Testing

New York City: Why Eliza Shapiro Should Read “Reign of Error”

By dianeravitch
August 9, 2017 //
28

Eliza Shapiro writes about New York City for Politico.

She wrote a somewhat wistful article about why New York City was no longer “the nation’s education reform capital.”

For one brief shining moment, she suggests, New York City had the chance to expand its privately managed charter schools and to break the grip of the teachers’ union. It came “this close” to evaluating teachers by test scores. It was near to a point where it might have eliminated tenure and seniority.

All of this is supposedly reform?

Well, as she well knows, this is the agenda of hedge fund managers and others on Wall Street. This is the agenda of the billionaires who never set foot in a public school and whose children will never go to public school.

What stopped the headlong rush to crush public schools and teachers’ unions?

Parents. The New York State Allies for Public Education, a coalition of 50 parent and educator groups (not the union), that organized the mass opt outs from testing.

When twenty percent of the parents in the state with children in grades 3-8 refused to allow their children to take the tests, Governor Cuomo stopped in his tracks. He had been gung-ho to evaluate teachers by student test scores; he boldly claimed to be the state’s charter school champion (even though only 3% of the state’s children were enrolled in charter schools). But when the opt out started, he realized he had a political problem. He hired Jere Hochman, the thoughtful superintendent of the Bedford Central public schools, to advise him, and for the first time, he had an experienced educator calming his passions. He formed a commission and grew silent.

Sheri Lederman, a much-loved teacher in the Great Neck public schools, challenged her evaluation, and the judge agreed with her that it was arbitrary and capricious.

The American Statistical Association said that the test-based evaluations in which Cuomo put so much stock were inappropriate for evaluating individual teachers.

Shapiro seems unaware of most of these developments. Her framework is: charter supporters=good; unions=bad; firing teachers at will without cause=good; tenure=bad.

She insists on seeing the New York City story through the framework of “reformers vs. union.” It would have made more sense to look at the NYC story as “parents (in New York State, not New York City) vs. high-stakes testing. Research vs. Cuomo.

Now that the reform laurels are no longer in New York City, she suggests that readers look to Louisiana and D.C. instead, both of which are among the lowest performing jurisdictions in the nation.

I want to suggest to Eliza Shapiro that she read my last two books: The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (rev., 2016); and Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools. She should read Mercedes Schneider on John White in Louisiana and John Merrow on the subject of the D.C. “miracle” that wasn’t. (John Merrow and Mary Levy will have an article in the next issue of the Washington Monthly that takes apart the D.C. “miracle.” but in the meanwhile Shapiro can read this post that Merrow wrote: https://themerrowreport.com/2017/08/08/touching-the-elephant/comment-page-1/

If she contacts me, I will send her both books at my expense. If she reads them, she will be a better education writer. Certainly better informed.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New York City, Privatization, Testing

Michael Hynes: “The New Normal” Is Sick

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2017 //
49

Michael Hynes is superintendent of the Patchogue-Medford public schools on Long Island in NewNew York.

He writes:

“Is hypernormalisation even a word? I didn’t believe so until recently. According to Wikipedia, (insert sarcasm), “The term … is taken from Alexei Yurchak’s 2006 book Everything was Forever, Until it was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, about the paradoxes of life in the Soviet Union, where the author explains, “Everyone knew the system was failing, but as no one could imagine any alternative to the status quo, politicians and citizens were resigned to maintaining a pretense of a functioning society. Over time, this delusion became a self-fulfilling prophecy and the “fakeness” was accepted by everyone as real”, an effect that Yurchak dubbed hypernormalisation.

“British filmmaker Adam Curtis took the concept beyond the Soviet reference, in his award-nominated documentary, HyperNormalisation,, about how governments, financiers, and technological gurus have given up on the complex “real world” and built a “fake world,” run by corporations and kept stable by politicians.

“Wow, sound familiar? This is precisely what is taking place in the United States at the present moment, most notably in my world of public education.

“The hypernormalisation of public education has been slowly creeping its way into our schools, becoming the official party line with the federal mandate of testing our children to death with No Child Left Behind in 2001. This legislation required that all grades 3-8 students are tested every year in English Language Arts and mathematics. The later incarnations of NCLB have only upped the testing ante, by making high test scores such a priority that a school’s very existence depends on making the mark.

“This means that what most of us consider “normal” is no longer normal. School days filled with reading, writing, math, science, social studies, playing outside, working out problems with friends, art, music, taking an occasional trip, are no longer “normal.”

“If we compared our public school experience from that of twenty-five years ago against the “new normal,” we witness children losing the ability to play in the classroom (where true learning takes place), the significant decline of recess and a loss of social and emotional experiences that all children benefit from.

“This “new normal” is teach less and test more. And because of the high stakes attached to these tests, schools are forced to focus on academic outcomes at the expense of a child’s social and emotional growth.

“Under this hypernormalized model, teachers now rank and sort children based on a proficiency model instead of how much growth each individual child may show.

“So don’t celebrate too soon New York parents, educators and policy makers. Just because the Board of Regents recently trimmed time off of the 3-8 English Language Arts and mathematics state tests from six days to four, the “new normal” hasn’t budged.

“As long as the stakes attached to the tests remain as high as they are, then our schools will remain driven by only two outcomes: ELA and mathematics state test scores instead of attaining what’s most important: enlightening the whole child to maximize their true talents and potential.

“I recognize that the obstacles in achieving a new healthy normal are huge, as our politicians at the state and federal level, along with so-called reformers and business opportunists who have been reaping tremendous financial profits from this system, continue to praise and fund a high stakes test-driven school model.

“But make no mistake: this “new normal” is taking an unacceptable toll on our children; focusing on the whole child, regardless of scores, is what desperately needs to become our new normal.”

Michael J. Hynes, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools
Patchogue-Medford Schools
241 South Ocean Ave.
Patchogue, NY 11772

@PMSchoolsSupe or @Mikehynes5

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Testing
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