Parent activists in Los Angeles have started organizing a campaign to have a seat at the table when the school board picks the next superintendent.
They call their campaign “Vet the Supe.” See links here and here.
They are concerned that the Board might select another Broadie like Deasy, who collected $350,000 a year, wasted hundreds of millions of dollars in a botched plan to buy iPads, and now works for the Broad Foundation, training other superintendents. Is that the definition of chutzpah?
In 1975, New York City’s government teetered on the verge of bankruptcy. The city’s leaders appealed to the Gerald Ford administration for financial help. President Ford said no.
The New York Daily News published a headline on its front page that was immediately iconic:
FORD TO NYC: DROP DEAD
Today the same newspaper published an editorial with the same sentiment, this time directed at the parents of the 220,000 children who refused the state tests.
The editorial argues that the parents have been manipulated by the teachers’ union, which is not only false but implies that the parents are dupes.
The editorial claims that the state must stand by the Common Core standards, which (they say) were “developed over many years by the nation’s top education experts.” Would the editorial board please tell us how many years they consider “many,” like two? Would the editors please name the nation’s “top educational experts?” David Coleman of McKinsey? Jason Zimba of Bennington College? Representatives of the College Board and ACT? Are these our “nation’s top educational experts”? Who says so?
The editorial argues that the state must support Governor Cuomo’s demand that 50% of teachers’ evaluation be tied to student test scores, ignoring the research and experience showing that this policy has no basis in research or real life.
Has the editorial board read the statement of the American Statistical Association, which found that teachers affect 1-14% of the variation in student scores, while the family and home have a far greater effect?
Is the editorial board aware of the legal battle of Sheri Lederman, an exemplary fourth-grade teacher in Great Neck who was rated “ineffective” on student growth? Sheri received accolades from her superintendent, her principal, parents, and former students. Should respected and successful teachers like Sheri be fired and replaced by new and inexperienced teachers? Why?
The editorial piously says:
“Kids in struggling schools have for years been plagued by low expectations and too many lower-performing teachers.”
So the editorial wants readers to believe that the Common Core tests that failed 96% of English language learners, 94% of children with disabilities, and more than 80% of Black and Hispanic children are in their best interests. Never mind that the same tests, with their absurdly unrealistic passing marks, widened the achievement gaps among groups. Why does the editorial board think that students in “struggling schools” will fare better academically if most of them fail the Common Core tests year after year? How will repeated failure create higher expectations? More likely, it will produce among the children a sense of despair and low self-worth.
It may be comforting to the editors of the Daily News to think that their arch-enemy–the teachers’ union–is pulling the strings, but the reality is that parents across the state are fed up with the excessive emphasis on testing. They know it robs their children of the arts, science, history, even physical education and recess.
The union doesn’t tell them that their children are cheated by the obsessive focus on testing. Parents see it with their own eyes. And parents across America agree with parents in Néw York. A recent Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll reported that 67% of public school parents and 64% of the public nationwide think there is too much emphasis on standardized tests in school.
So who should we listen to about education? The politicians or public school parents? The politicians or statistical experts?
This is a battle that the Daily News and Governor Cuomo can’t win. If they keep fighting and demeaning parents, next spring there will be 400,000 students who refuse the tests. They will refuse not because their parents are dupes of the union, but because their parents are defending the best interests of their children.
Last spring, the Néw York legislature passed a budget that included a harsh and punitive teacher evaluation plan. This was done at Governor Cuomo’s insistence because he was angry that the state teachers’ union did not support his re-election in 2014. There were no hearings, discussions, or debates on the governor’s plan. It was passed because he wanted it.
The following comment was sent by Lisa Eggert, a specialist in education law who lives in Néw York. She wrote in response to this post.
“Thank you Diane for posting this! And here’s more to say about whether “this is the law”–
“1. The law (Education Transformation Act) required that the Regents pass rules on the evaluation plan by June 30, 2015, which they did, so they will not be in violation by voting no. The legislature surely realized that the tight time constraint meant that only temporary 90-day emergency rules could be passed, and it did not require a subsequent rule to be passed when the emergency one expires.
“2. It’s the job of the Regents and Ed Dept to set the plan’s cut scores that determine who is effective and who’s not. The plan of now sets an effective rating at a whopping 75% of students meeting targets. The School Administrators Assn. suggests 55%. What science or research supports 75%?
“3. The law actually requires that the public be told all the specifics regarding research and studies on which the plan is based, when the Ed Dept publishes a Notice of Rulemaking (the Notice is also required by law). But when the Ed Dept published the Notice, it gave a non responsive answer, identifying no study or research and just acknowledging that it had to work with experts. This is a legal violation of NY’s State Administrative Procedure Act, which protects the public’s right to have input into rules that have the force of law.
“4. The law is also being violated because the Admin Pro Act requires that any member of the public who asks be allowed access to any underlying studies. The Notice says to contact Kirti Goswami at the Ed Dept. I’ve emailed and spoken with her several times to find out how to access any underlying studies supporting the plan or, alternatively, to confirm that in fact no studies or research were relied on in creating the plan. She has been unable to provide anything or confirm anything, all in violation of the Admin Pro Act. (It feels like an awful run-around.)
“5. So, in talking to the Regents, feel free to point out that yes, the law is being broken –the law that protects the public’s right to understand and assess proposed rules and give input. I don’t mean to sound hoaky but this is the law that protects the democratic process, giving the public a voice when unelected officials, like the Commissioner Elia and the Regents, make rules. The Regents need to stand up for these laws that protect our basic rights.
“6. And also, from the state’s inability to point to any underlying science, it strongly appears that these rules, including the harsh cut scores, are entirely unfounded. They should be voted down so that a researched-based plancan be created by experts.”
Some of those who are offended by the idea that parents opt their children out of state tests have said that all children MUST take the test because “it’s the law.”
But Peter Greene says there is nothing in the law that says students MUST take the test. The law says that the state MUST give the tests.
Parents have the right to refuse. The state does not own their children. The state education department works for the public, not the other way around.
Even MaryEllen Elia recognizes that parents have the right to opt out. She will try to persuade them not to, but she cannot coerce them. She has no legal power to do so.
Hello, parents of New York, you have the right to opt your child out of state testing. So says the State Superintendent MaryEllen Elia.
Forget what you heard last week about threats and sanctions. That was then. This is now.
” State Education Commissioner Mary Ellen Elia says she won’t prevent parents who want their children to skip the state’s standardized tests from doing so. The commissioner detailed her views on the controversial Opt Out movement in an interview with public radio and television….
“Commissioner Elia says parents “absolutely” have the right to opt their kids out of state standardized tests, but she says she still wants to talk to them to try to bring them back to the fold.
“We haven’t done enough communication,” Elia said. “But if parents understand it and they still want their child to opt out, that certainly is their right.”
“Robert Lowry, the spokesman for the New York State Council of School Superintendents, says some superintendents did indeed ask for help. Others are trying on their own to convince students to participate. But he says many more believe that the tests themselves are fundamentally flawed.
“The real issue is that the tests have to change,” Lowry said. “Parents are upset for a reason.”
“Lowry says the preparations was not well thought out, and schools get too little information on results too late.”
This is a work in progress.
Message to parents: do what you think is best for your child.
Fred LeBrun of the Albany Times-Union warns State Commissioner MaryEllen Elia that she is making a huge mistake by her confrontational tactics with the parents of the 225,000 children who opted out of mandated state tests last spring.
He predicts that if she doesn’t change course, the number of opt outs will grow in 2016.
She assumes that the parents need a lecture (“it’s the law!”) or information (they just don’t understand how important these tests are).
Neither is true, writes LeBrun. The law days the state must give the tests, but the law does NOT say that students must take them.
And the opt out parents in Long Island and upstate New York are not uninformed. They know exactly what they are doing and why they are doing it.
LeBrun writes:
“Remember the state Education Department’s own statistical analysis of Opt Outers, the one-third of eligible upstate and Long Island third through eight graders who chose not to take the standardized tests last spring. Their families are white, solidly middle class, well educated, generally from low needs — that is to say, not impoverished — school districts. Regardless of what the new standardized tests might suggest about them — more would fail than pass — these students routinely grow up to hit the appropriate SAT benchmarks, graduate and go on to two- and four-year colleges.
“These are not the kind of parents who are likely to be intimidated by vague assertions that, as Elia now suggests, a reason to take the standardized tests is because, ”listen, it’s the law.” It may be the law that public schools must offer the tests. But nothing I’ve read even suggests it’s the law a student must take them. Parents do have rights. If anything, Elia’s tack is likely to throw fuel on the fire rather than quell it in terms of opting out. Likewise, any back handed attempt to paint the Opt Out movement as being fanned by teachers is as insulting to the legions of parental volunteers who are Opt Out’s core, and know it, as it is to teachers. Nor is Elia’s condescending suggestion that fuller knowledge of what Common Core is and these standardized tests are about will turn Opt Outers around.”
Something amazing is happening. Parents have discovered that they have the power to bring corporate reform to a halt. They do it by telling their children not to take the test. No test, no data. No data, no punishments for teachers, administrators, schools. Opting out is a vivid demonstration of the power of the powerless.
In Washington State, an unprecedented 48,000 students opted put.
Most of the opt outs were in 11th grade.
Carolyn Leith calls this an “educational uprising.”
If state leaders don’t listen to stents, the uprising will spread.
New York State Commissioner MaryEllen Elia plans an informational campaign for parents with a toolkit to explain why assessment is valuable and necessary.
““As you get more people involved in the process, you have more people understanding what’s going on and why you have assessments,” she said. “There are a lot of people that don’t know what the Common Core is.”
“Educators are hoping that the toolkit includes further guidelines, including what is and what is not ethical for teachers or school administrators to say publicly about the exams, an issue that has become controversial across the state.”
Elia recently told a meeting of the Gates-funded group “Educators for Excellence” that opting out was “unreasonable” and that educators who encourage it are “unethical.”
Leaders of the opt out movement reject the claim that they are uninformed.
“Some parents, like Jessica McNair [who is also a teacher], say they already are informed about Common Core and the opt-out movement should not be dismissed as a lack of information.
“I think she has a lot to learn about the parents in New York State,” McNair said. “We’re not going to back down until we see tests that are developmentally appropriate, and tests that are decoupled from the teacher evaluations.”
Is it “ethical” to require children who can’t read to take standardized tests? Is it “ethical” to require children who are English language learners to take tests they are sure to fail?
It is time to think about the meaning of ethics. Does it mean following orders, regardless of the consequences? Or do educators have a higher duty when directed to act in ways that harm the children in their care?
Dyett High School in Chicago closed but members of the local community are continuing a hunger strike to demand that it reopen as a district-run neighborhood high school.
Blogger Fred Klonsky says it is a scandal that the media in Chicago have ignored the community’s fight to save Dyett.
He quotes at length from an article that appears in “In These Times” that explains the reasons for the protest and its goals.
“The high school has long been in the process of closing. Chicago Public Schools (CPS) announced in 2012 that Dyett would be “phased out,” meaning after 2012 no new students would be admitted, as a result of low test scores, and the building would be closed when the last class graduated.
“Three years later, Dyett’s doors are now closed. But the fight to reopen the school is heating up. On Monday, August 17, 12 parents and neighborhood activists began a hunger strike, under the banner of the Coalition to Revitalize Dyett High School, to demand that CPS make a decision on the future of the school and reopen it as a district-run, open-enrollment, neighborhood school that would allow all students to attend regardless of grades.”
What exactly is the point of closing so many schools, so many of which were the heart of their local community?
The newspaper in the Lower Hudson Valley of New York (north of New York City) is called Lohud.com. Its reporters have been outstanding in covering education issues in Albany and across the state. Unlike the New York Times, Lohud’s editorialists understand why parents are opting out. Instead of scolding them, as the Times did recently, Lohud calls on state leaders to listen to them and take action to address their grievances. Last year, 5% of the state’s students opted out; this year it was 20%. The New York opt out was so huge that it has received national attention. In some schools and districts (outside of New York City), opting out is the norm, not the exception. If state officials continue to threaten parents who opt out, you can bet there will be more opt outs next spring.
This is what Lohud.com wrote:
It seems that everyone has been trying to analyze the opt-out numbers from April’s state tests in math and ELA. But there’s not much to figure out. There’s no secret code in the numbers, no conspiracy to unravel. If you’ve been following the education wars during New York and the nation’s “reform” era, the meaning of the opt-out numbers should be plain: Growing numbers of parents are not happy with our educational direction.
The big question is not what the numbers show, but what our educational leaders will say or do to satisfy parents who had their children boycott April’s tests — or may do so next April. School starts in a few weeks, and what happens over the next few months may determine the future of the opt-out movement….
Real concerns
At a time when few people come out to vote on school budgets, and many parents are simply too busy to worry about non-essential matters, such a widespread movement cannot be easily dismissed — even if one disagrees with the decision to opt out.
Why did so many parents choose to defy state and federal insistence that the annual math and ELA tests provide essential information? There is no single reason. But several prominent concerns led the way:
Too much focus on new Common Core tests is leading to a narrowing of the curriculum and “teaching to the test.”
The use of student test scores to evaluate teachers may be inaccurate and unfair — and is hurting the morale of popular, proven local teachers.
The tests themselves are poorly conceived and have not been reviewed.
Test results are released too late, during August, to be of help teachers, parents or students.
Testing requirements are unfair to students with disabilities and recent English learners.
There are other concerns, of course. But the overall issue is that growing numbers of parents seem to believe that the trifecta of tougher standards, tougher tests and tougher teacher evaluations is not the answer to improving public education.
Many advocates and commentators continue to insist that the opt-out movement was surreptitiously created and nurtured by teachers unions, sort of like Frankenstein. This is simply not the case. At least in New York, the movement was built over several years — slowly, in stops and starts — by parent groups using social media. Local teachers unions started to publicly back the opt-out idea only in the final months before April’s tests. And NYSUT, the statewide union, did not jump in until the final weeks, after it was clear that Gov. Andrew Cuomo would not allow lawmakers to topple his much-despised teacher-evaluation system.
The eval link
Speaking of teacher evaluations, school officials in the Lower Hudson Valley continue to say out loud what many lawmakers and state bureaucrats quietly know: that community-based discontent over the clumsy, ineffective evaluation system will only grow and will feed — guess what? — the opt-out movement. Bedford Schools Superintendent Jere Hochman, the new president of the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents (and a guy who tries to see things the state’s way) told our Editorial Board last week: “The whole system needs to be thrown out. Start over.”
The Westchester Putnam School Boards Association, in a new statement to the Education Department, condemns recent changes to the evaluation system as “disruptive to our schools, staff and students” and said the current plan “cannot and should not be salvaged.” The group also noted that the opt-out movement has exposed parental concerns about the “nexus” of high-stakes testing and evaluations.
School districts need an evaluation system that continually helps good teachers improve — leading to better classroom instruction — and identifies teachers who need help or can’t do the job. New York does not have such a system.
Class divide?
There’s been a great deal of focus on where large number of parents boycotted the tests and where the movement did not gain much traction. Analysts have emphasized low opt-out rates in both urban “poor” school systems and the state’s most affluent school districts. The state Education Department noted that most test-refusers were white and “more likely to be from a low or average need districts,” in other words, middle-class suburbanites.
But if you talk to educators and parents, there’s no mystery about why opt-out rates were higher in some places than others. In cities with high poverty rates, parents often don’t have the luxury of worrying about education policies because they are too focused on daily concerns and less connected to parent groups. Plus, in New York City, where the opt-out rate was less than 2 percent, test scores have long been tied to school admissions and student promotions. In affluent districts, meanwhile, officials and real estate agents worry that any form of public “discontent” will affect property values.
Yes, the opt-out movement has been driven by middle-class parents, conservatives and liberals, who don’t like the loss of local control over school matters.
It’s disturbing to hear some advocates suggest that parents who opt out are selfish because they are weakening a testing system that reveals the achievement gap facing poor, minority students. Everyone knows that the gap is perhaps the greatest challenge facing American schools. Figuring out how to close the gap is a more pressing question than how to better define it. We hope that the state’s new efforts to assist struggling schools will work out and provide new information on how to close the achievement gap.
Reigning in the opt-out movement will not be easy. Neither Elia nor Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch should expect instant results. It took several years of questionable state leadership before the opt-out movement took hold and gained momentum. It will likely take several years and some major policy changes to win back the trust of parents — and the teachers whom parents trust.
Diane Ravitch's blog 