Archives for category: Common Core
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New York: Parent Opt-Out Leaders Target Legislators Who Oppose Public Education in their Own Districts

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2016 //
10

The parent leaders of New York state’s powerful Opt Out movement are taking the next step in their campaign to protect their children and their schools: they are supporting challengers to their own state legislators.

The stronghold of the Opt Out movement is Long Island, the counties of Nassau and Suffolk, where about 50% of all children in grades 3-8 refused to take the state tests. As it happens, Long Island is represented by Republicans who strongly support charter schools (but not in their own districts!), high-stakes testing, Common Core, and test-based teacher evaluations.

The parents have had enough!

Test refusal forces have taken an interest in the race for the state’s 5th Senate District, and they’re using the organizing tools that have been effective in driving New York’s test opt-out movement to try to oust longtime incumbent Republican Sen. Carl Marcellino.

“We’re using all of our skills that we’ve learned over the last four years and we’re applying that to helping candidates who are going to advocate for us,” Jeanette Deutermann, administrator of Long Island Opt Out and co-founder of New York State Allies for Public Education, told POLITICO New York.

With the help of NYSAPE, an anti-Common Core coalition of parent groups from across the state, last spring more than 21 percent of the state’s approximately 1.1 million eligible third- through eighth-grade students refused to take the state standardized, Common Core-aligned math and English language arts exams.

The 5th Senate District, which includes portions of Nassau and Suffolk County, falls in the heart of the test refusal movement.

About 55 percent of public school students in Suffolk County opted out of exams in spring 2016, making the state’s eastern most corner a test refusal hot spot. About 43 percent of students opted out in Nassau County during that period.

Marcellino, who first won his seat in 1995, is the current head of the Senate Education Committee. His opponent, Democrat Jim Gaughran, has turned that position against Marcellino, running a campaign largely focused on education, setting it apart from most other races in the state.

Gaughran, the Suffolk County Water Authority chairman, has hosted listening tours on community education concerns throughout the district. Gaughran is announcing the end of his tour Wednesday, which included 25 events, at least one in each of the 17 public school districts in the Senate district, according to a news release provided to POLITICO New York.

Parents have no money to give, but they are supporting Gaughran with door-to-door campaigning and a social media campaign. They understand now after four years of organizing that they must fight for better leadership in Albany, where decisions affecting their children and their schools are made with no parent input, no evidence, no expertise, no knowledge. Petitions and rallies can be easily ignored. Real change requires better representation.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2016/11/opt-out-leaders-home-in-on-marcellino-senate-district-106975#ixzz4OrtQlovN

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New York, Opt Out, Parent Groups, Politics, Privatization, Resistance, Testing

Denis Ian: Ignore the Edu-Babble and Listen to Your Heart

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2016 //
11

Reader Denis Ian wrote the following comment in relation to the ongoing strife about Common Core standards and testing:

Every new school year renews the resistance to the Common Core reform. And parents new to this experience find themselves slathered in information and fear. Once upon a time we were the tenderfoot class … now we should act as sweet sages.

Every day brings another avalanche of studies, statistics, findings, and stuff. More babble. More white noise. More jargon. More junk-speak. All on purpose.

The strategy is simple. Complicate the reform issue with fleshy gibberish and endless jabberwocky. Scare ordinary folks. Make the issues seem too, too deep and too, too heavy for folks busy enough with all that parenthood demands.

The greatest fear of the reform mob is parents.

Parents own infinite passion when it comes to their children. And if lots and lots of parents glue themselves together, well, this reform morphs into mighty. That’s not the sort of muscle educrats, politicians, and local board members want to confront. Remember that … they fear you.

And parents new to this resistance should remember this.

Don’t be seduced by every morsel of information that gets dressed in glitter-words. Don’t be intimidated by edu-blather or fat-words.

Stay simple and stay on the issues that matter: Resist federal control. Protect childhood. Refuse the testing trap. Reclaim your schools.

Remember: No children, no reform. Your cooperation is your trump-card. If you don’t play, the game ends.

A caveat to the old-timers in this resistance.

Embrace newcomers as you were once embraced. Soothe new and nervous parents with warm reassurances that they have saddled-up with a child-centric confederacy of warriors who protect children … theirs included. And then tutor them slowly … and warn them of nonsense-overload.

The reformists are deceivers. Their strategy is to dazzle us with nonsense-junk. To unbalance us and to blur the simple truths.

They want our schools. They want our children. They want to politicize and profitize education … and have you foot the bill … and have your children pay the price. No way.

Avoid the information over-load … and listen to your heart. That drum in your chest always speaks the truth. Follow that beat.

Denis Ian

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Education Reform, Parents, Testing

Veteran First-Grade Teacher Calls for Moratorium on Pre-K-2 Commom Core Standards

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2016 //
12

Peter Rawitsch teaches first grade. He has been a teacher for 40 years. He was invited to participate in the New York State review of Common Core standards for the early grades.

He deliberated with the group and came away convinced that the standards, however written, will do more harm than good. In this article, he calls for a moratorium on standards for the youngest children.

http://ecepolicyworks.com/first-grade-teacher-demands-moratorium-on-nys-p-2-ela-standards/

He thinks that children need a childhood more than they need standards.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Common Core, New York, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Our Lost Poet on the “Charge of the Gates Brigade”

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2016 //
22

This is one of the very best poems from Some DamPoet. He/she wrote it after the Gates Foundation admitted that its plans were not working out as well as they hoped, but that they intended to double down on their foundering efforts. The Los Angeles Times reprimanded the Gates Foundation for its hubris. So does Our Poet.

“The Charge of the Gates Brigade” (based on “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

Half a wit, half a wit,
Half a wit onward,
All in the Valley of Dumb
Bill and Mel foundered
“Forward, the Gates Brigade!
Charge for the schools!” he said.
Into the Valley of Dumb
Bill and Mel foundered

II

“Forward, the Gates Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the Coleman knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and lie.
Into the Valley of Dumb
Bill and Mel foundered

III

Teachers to right of them,
Teachers to left of them,
Teachers in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with fact and stat,
Boldly they tuned out that,
Into the Ravitch jaws,
Into the mouth of cat
Bill and Mel foundered

IV

Flashed all their BS bare,
Dashed was their savoir faire
VAMming the teachers there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in with mir’s-n-smoke
Valiantly went for broke;
Cluelessly rushin’
Reeled from reality’s stroke
Shattered and sundered.
VAMming attack, for naught,
Bill and Mel foundered

V

Teachers to right of them,
Teachers to left of them,
Teachers behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with fact and stat,
While Bill and Mel chewed fat
They that had fought the BAT
Came through the Ravitch jaws,
Back from the mouth of cat,
All that was left in end:
Bill and Mel foundered

VI

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Gates Brigade,
Bill and Mel foundered

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Common Core, Education Reform, Failure, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

The Washington Post: What Trump and Clinton Say about American Education

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2016 //
45

Reporters at the Washington Post asked both major party candidates what they would do in the area of K-12 education.

Trump gave a brief reply and ignored the questions.

Clinton (or her staff) answered all the questions.

Donald Trump’s answer was, go to my website, and he (or his staff) added this:

“As your president, I will be the nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice. I want every single inner city child in America who is today trapped in a failing school to have the freedom – the civil right – to attend the school of their choice. I understand many stale old politicians will resist. But it’s time for our country to start thinking big once again. We spend too much time quibbling over the smallest words, when we should spend our time dreaming about the great adventures that lie ahead.”

Clinton’s answers were ambiguous; she is for testing, but not too much testing. She is for charter schools, but only good charter schools.

She opposes for-profit charter schools, but doesn’t seem to realize that many allegedly nonprofit charters outsource their management to for-profit companies.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Clinton, Common Core, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing, Trump

Doug Garnett: The Brilliant Strategy of the Philanthrocapitalists: The Echo Chamber

By dianeravitch
October 13, 2016 //
54

Doug Garnett is a communications specialist and a regular reader of the blog. He writes here about reading “Policy Patrons,” by Megan Tomkins-Stange.

Been reading Policy Patrons. And it’s given me a different insight.

We all feel like Gates, Broad and others are “dictating” what happens. It’s hard – because they aren’t. What they’re doing is far more subtle but with similar results.

What they’ve done is create a “walled garden” of groups that are all paid to support their position. The list in this article is an example of creating that walled garden – a range of community organizations, researchers, university credibility, etc…

THEN, with the walled garden created, the foundations themselves never have to “tell the government what to do”. They are able to say “well, I know somebody who deals with that – you should talk with them”. Except the foundations have ensured that this “somebody” is somebody who will give the answer they want.

It’s incredibly deceptive – but politicians and press seem incapable of detecting when they’ve been had in this way. Because the “walled garden” of true “ed reform believers” are the only people they end up talking to. In a sense, Gates, Broad, et. al. deliver answers on a silver platter so that state education departments, school districts, politicians, and press don’t have to work hard.

This informal (but massive) walled garden they’ve build believes in testing as management, believes in CCSS, believes in charter schools, and believes that privatizing government services is always good.

As a result, state education bureaucrats NEVER have to wander outside the garden – so they never have to confront uncomfortable truths. (It’s dangerous outside those walls and that threatens one’s career.)

But this also explains why politicians are so shocked when citizens confront them with dissatisfaction with their policies – they’ve been blissfully living inside the Eden of Reform – unaware that they aren’t in touch with reality. I’ve seen this in Oregon. Our legislators cannot believe it when someone rational challenges what they’ve been doing.

It’s a HUGE problem for those of us who believe in public schools and believe in the value of researched answers. Because it’s not illegal what they’ve done. They believe it’s entirely moral. And they think they’re being “good people” by doing it. And it spreads blame by breaking it into tiny bits so no single organization can be blamed for much. Kind of a guaranteed “plausible deniability” clause.

Yet the result is entirely immoral – because it’s the future of our children.

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Mercedes Schneider: ESSA Prohibits Federal Support for Common Core, But No One Stops Bill Gates

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2016 //
19

Mercedes Schneider reports that Bill Gates is throwing millions into Common Core, making up for the fact that the new federal law bans federal support for Common Core.

Gates recently awarded $18 million to support Common Core implementation. It’s his baby, and he is not letting go in the face of mass opposition.

Categories Common Core, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Nicholas Tampio: National Standards Are Not Necessary in a Democracy

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2016 //
64

Nicholas Tampio, a professor of political science at Fordham University in New York, published an essay about national standards in the peer-reviewed “Journal of Politics,” one of the top journals in the field. It should be part of our national discussion about the dominant policy paradigm of the past 35 years: policy makers assumed without question that the way to improve education is to set standards, train teachers to teach the standards, teach the standards, test the standards, then start over?

Tampio says this paradigm is wrong.

He writes:

“This article intervenes in the debate about whether democracies should adopt national education standards. For many democrats, national education standards may promote economic growth, social justice, and a common set of interests. In this article, I reconstruct John Dewey’s warning against oligarchs using standardization to control the schools as well as his argument that democracy requires student, teacher, and community autonomy. The article argues that the Common Core State Standards Initiative has been a top-down policy that aims to prepare children for the economy rather than democracy, and for the foreseeable future, economic elites will tend to dominate efforts to create national education standards. In the conclusion, I make a pragmatic argument for local education control and address objections such as that democracies need national educational standards to ensure racial equity.”

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/687206

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Education Industry, Education Reform

Mercedes Schneider: Will PARCC Survive?

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2016 //
11

Mercedes Schneider read the 128-page report on the future of the federally funded testing consortium called PARCC. It was launched, along with the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, by Arne Duncan, who gave the two $360 million to write Common Core-aligned tests. PARCC has had a hard time, however. It started with 24 member states, and now it is down to six states and D.C.

It put out a call to other testing companies and interested parties, asking for advice. Mercedes read the advice and she shares it here with you.

Will the last state in PARCC remember to turn out the lights when you leave?

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Education Industry, Testing

New York Revises the Common Core Learning Standards–by a Lot or a Little, Depending on Whom You Believe

By dianeravitch
September 22, 2016 //
50

New York State just released a draft of its revision of the Common Core standards.

There are different interpretations of how much has changed. Some say more than half of the standards were tweaked. Defenders of the standards insist they were barely changed at all.

We will have to wait until teachers have seen the revisions and offered their comments.

In New York, the Common Core standards have also became part of a larger discussion about other policy reforms, such as the use of state standardized test scores in teacher evaluations. Replacing the standards is the first step in redefining what it means to get an education in New York state, which will include revising assessments, teacher evaluations and how the state rates schools.

The standards will now go out for public comment, which will be open until Nov. 4. The Board of Regents are expected to consider the standards in early 2017 and roll out new assessments based on the standards by the 2018-19 school year.

The standards were revised in response to the success of the Opt Out movement; 20% of children eligible to take the tests–about 200,000–did not take them in 2015. The number rose slightly this past year. Governor Cuomo formed a commission that recommended a thorough review of the standards and the tests.

Here are the draft standards:

http://www.nysed.gov/draft-standards-english-language-arts

and here:

http://www.nysed.gov/draft-standards-mathematics

The crucial question will be whether the standards are age-appropriate, especially in the early grades, where complaints have been most intense. Early reviews from teachers suggest that very little if anything has changed in the K-2 grades, where the standards are the worst.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Cuomo, Andrew, Education Industry, Education Reform, New York, Testing
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