Archives for category: Teachers
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Jonathan Pelto: Who Are “Educators 4 Excellence”?

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2015 //
28

Perhaps you have heard of Educators 4 Excellence, or their shorter name E4E.

The group started in New York City, led by young teachers who did not like the union. They seem to be Teach for America teachers, mostly with a year or two of experience. They have received millions from the Gates Foundation and other corporate reformers.

Now they are spreading to other states, to substitute wherever possible for the traditional teacher organizations as the “voice” of young teachers, those who want merit pay, like high-stakes testing, want to be evaluated by test scores, etc.

Jonathan Pelto tells their story here.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teachers

Peggy Robertson of United Opt Out Responds to the New York Times’ Article

By dianeravitch
April 21, 2015 //
44

This comment was posted on the blog by Peggy Robertson, founder of United Opt Out, in response to the New York Times’ article implying that the Opt Out movement is led by the teachers’ unions.

Peggy Robertson writes:

Opt out is led by parents, teachers, students and citizens. When United Opt Out National began over four years ago we were simply a facebook page with a file for each state. Within hours our FB group page was flooded with opt out requests and now we have opt out leaders all over the country and grassroots opt out groups popping up everywhere. I think Florida has 25 at this point – probably more since I last checked – and mind you they did this all on their own. UOO has simply been a catalyst and a support. What is even more fascinating, and sad, is that UOO has reached out to the unions many times, and never received a response. You will notice that United Opt Out National is rarely mentioned in recent articles. I think that’s because we represent the people. The power of the people. UOO has no funding (heck I paid for our website for the first two years pretty much on my own). When our website was destroyed last year guess who helped UOO fund/rebuild it? The people. No corporations. No unions. The people – the citizens of this country – for free – and with truth and heart – have helped us to create fifty state opt out guides. The citizens have helped us to continually update and alert folks to opt out situations across the country. The people have helped us create essential guides, opt out letters, and social media campaigns. The fact that this is happening by the people, for the people, with no funding, is true democracy and is a dangerous thing. Folks would much prefer that we are sheeple and that we are incapable of strategically planning a nationwide opt out movement. Guess what? We did it. All of us. That makes us dangerous. That makes the media/corporations want to co-opt and shut down our work. A mass movement of civil disobedience that is running through our country like a tidal wave in an attempt to save our democracy is indeed a powerful force that no corporation can shut down. Let’s keep pushing forward. Solidarity to all of you.

Categories Opt Out, Parents, Standardized Testing, Teachers, Unions

David Berliner Speaks Out About the Teaching Profession and America’s Future

By dianeravitch
April 20, 2015 //
22

Gene V. Glass posted the following words by David Berliner on his blog, Education in Two Worlds:

When a profession as large and necessary to society as teaching is insulted by state and federal Secretaries of Education, judged negatively by the nation’s presidents and governors, see their pensions cut, receive salaries that do not keep up with inflation, often cannot afford to live in the communities they work in, cannot always practice their profession in ways that are ethical and efficacious, are asked to support policies that may do harm to children, are judged by student test scores that are insensitive to instruction and more often reflect social class differences rather than instructional quality, see public monies used to support discriminatory charter and private schools, yet still have a great deal of support from the parents of the children they teach, then there is a strategy for making teachers’ lives better. It is called unionization. The reasons for unionization could not be plainer. New and veteran teachers should band together and close down school systems of the type I have described. It will be difficult, of course, and some teachers will no doubt be fired and jailed. But if teachers do not fix this once noble profession, America may well lose its soul, as well as its edge.

Categories Teachers

Anthony Cody: When Teachers’ Voices Are Silenced

By dianeravitch
April 19, 2015 //
37

Some states, as Audrey Beardsley reported in the previous post, are silencing educators by law or regulation or threats. They definitely don’t want teachers to express their views about high-stakes testing or political interference by legislators in the state capitol or from D.C. Nor do they want teachers to express their need for professional autonomy or to complain about mandates and paperwork and scripted lessons. Why anyone would presume that elected officials know more about teaching than teachers is a great puzzlement.

But as Anthony Cody shows in this post, legislatures are not the only ones who are trying to stifle teacher voice. He recounts a sad story about exemplary teachers who were invited to write a report about “a new vision for accountability.” When the report came out, Cody wrote about it, and I posted his commentary. We both thought it was a teacher-written report. Then he began hearing from teachers whose names were on the report, complaining that their words had been edited, revised, in some cases deleted by the consultants in charge. He dug deeper and learned that the consultants in charge of the project–ostensibly sponsored by the NEA–were funded by the Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation.

Cody includes in his post the statements of several participants in the process, all reporting that their recommendations were altered without their consent, in ways they did not approve. Their voices were muted, stifled, silenced.

Categories Teachers

Audrey Beardsley: The Silencing of the Educators, A Dangerous Trend

By dianeravitch
April 19, 2015 //
74

Audrey Beardsley, a professor at Arizona State University, recently visited parents, educators, students, and state leaders in New Mexico. There she learned that the state had adopted gag orders for teachers, forbidding them from discussing or expressing an opinion about the state tests (PARCC).

 

She writes:

 

 

Under the “leadership” of Hanna Skandera — former Florida Deputy Commissioner of Education under former Governor Jeb Bush and head of the New Mexico Public Education Department — teachers throughout the state are being silenced.

 

New Mexico now requires teachers to sign a contractual document that they are not to “diminish the significance or importance of the tests” (see, for example, slide 7 here) or they could lose their jobs. Teachers are not to speak negatively about the tests or say anything negatively about these tests in their classrooms or in public; if they do they could be found in violation of their contracts. At my main presentation in New Mexico, a few teachers even approached me after “in secret” whispering their concerns in fear of being “found out.” Rumor also has it that Hanna Skandera has requested the names and license numbers of any teachers who have helped or encouraged students to protest the state’s “new” PARCC test(s), as well.

 

One New Mexico teacher asked whether “this is a quelling of free speech and professional communication?” I believe it most certainly is a Constitutional violation. I am also shocked to now find out that something quite similar is occurring in my state of Arizona.

 

Needless to say, neither of our states (or many states typically in the sunbelt for that matter) are short on bad ideas, but this is getting absolutely ridiculous, especially as this silencing of the educators seems to be yet another bad idea that is actually trending?

 

As per a recent article in our local paper – The Arizona Republic – Arizona “legislators want to gag school officials” in an amendment to Senate Bill 1172 that will prohibit “an employee of a school district or charter school, acting on the district’s or charter school’s behalf, from distributing electronic materials to influence the outcome of an election or to advocate support for or opposition to pending or proposed legislation.”

 

The charge is also that this is a retaliatory move by AZ legislators, in response to a series of recent protests in response to serious budget cuts several weeks ago. “Perhaps [this is] to keep [educators] from talking about how the legislature has shortchanged Arizona’s school kids by hundreds of millions of dollars since the recession, and how the legislature is still making it nearly impossible for many districts to take care of even [schools’] most basic needs.”

 

In addition, is this even Constitutional? An Arizona Schools Boards Association (ASBA) spokesperson is cited as responding, saying “SB 1172 raises grave constitutional concerns. It may violate school and district officials free speech rights and almost certainly chills protected speech by school officials and the parents and community members that interact with them. It will freeze the flow of information to the public that seeks to ascertain the impact of pending legislation on their schools and children’s education.”

 

Where is the American Civil Liberties Union? Why are teachers singled out for a speech ban? As Beardsley asks, “Is this even Constitutional?” I would add, is this America?

Categories Arizona, Freedom of Speech, New Mexico, Teachers

Teachers and Parents: Horror Stories about ELA Common Core Tests in New York

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2015 //
47

The New York City Public School Parents’ Blog invited readers to comment on the ELA exams, which were administered last week (this current week devotes three days to testing in math). At last reading, there were 47 comments. Some of the comments refer to specific passages on the exam, which Pearson does not allow.

Given the fact that test passages are being disclosed on Facebook and elsewhere on the Internet, Pearson and other test publishers should release their exams and write new questions. If there are thousands of questions available, it won’t hurt anyone if students read them and use them to hone their skills. No one will know what will be on the next test.

By the way, some teachers who responded to this post noticed passages from last year’s tests.

Categories New York, Parents, Standardized Testing, Teachers

Breaking News: Illinois Education Association Supports Right of Parents to Opt Their Child Out of Testing

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2015 //
7

According to Glen Brown, a teacher in Illinois, the Illinois Education Association endorsed the right of parents to opt their child out of state testing today.

Here is an excerpt from the resolution that was passed:

The IEA supports the right of a parent or guardian to exclude his or child from any or all parts of state and district-level standardized tests, provided the state or school districts are not financially or otherwise penalized if such students are excluded, and supports the right of educators without suffering from adverse actions regarding their employment or licensure to:

Discuss the impact of standardized testing with parents and/or guardians

Discuss the state and district-level standardized tests with parents or guardians and may inform parents or guardians of their ability to exclude his or her child from state and/or district-level standardized tests

Provide a parent or guardian with his or her opinion on whether or not a student would benefit from exclusion from a state and/or district-level test, and that no adverse action or discipline will be taken against a school district employee who engages in such discussion.

The IEA furthermore supports:

A school and its employees not being negatively impacted due to a student not taking a state and/or district level standardized test, such as by ensuring that students who are opted out of standardized tests by a parent or guardian are excluded from performance calculations for state and local accountability measures and from employee evaluations

Reducing the volume of standardized tests that students must take and to reduce the time educators and students spend on meaningless test preparation drills

Categories Illinois, Opt Out, Standardized Testing, Teachers

Adam Urbanski Defends Teachers’ Freedom of Speech

By dianeravitch
April 14, 2015 //
29

A letter was circulated to all principals in the Rochester, New York, school system, advising them to identify teachers who had encouraged parents or students to opt out and to report teachers who were absent on testing day.

 

Adam Urbanski, the president of the Rochester Teachers Association, sent the following letter to his members:

 

Colleagues,

 

The attached email was sent to school principals by Beverly Burrell-Moore. Understandably, teachers find the tone and content of that email to be a blatant attempt at intimidation and an infringement on teachers’ rights and academic freedom. I have immediately brought this to the attention of Superintendent Vargas who said that he was unaware of the email but would communicate his position to teachers directly later today.

 

As well they should, teachers feel a moral obligation to speak up when they witness harm being done to their students. The tests being now imposed on students are educational malpractice and should be objectionable to teachers, parents and all others who care about students. I applaud all parents who choose to refuse to subject their children to these meaningless and bad tests and commend teachers who insist on their right to respond to inquiries from parents and students.

 

Today we have filed a Class Action Grievance against the District for already taking disciplinary action against individual teachers. Please let us know if you or your colleagues suffer any reprisals as a result of speaking out against these tests. We will continue to defend the rights of teachers to speak out against harmful educational practices and to advocate for the best interest of their students.

 

 

Adam Urbanski, RTA President

Categories Opt Out, Teachers, Testing

A Teacher Writes to the Néw York Board of Regents

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2015 //
17

The following was posted as a comment on the blog:

 

Dear Dr. Ravitch,

 

I have spent the last week and a half reeling from the shot across the bow that public education took on March 31st when the New York State Legislature ostensibly signed off on its destruction with the passing of the New York State Budget, and its attached legislation, S2006B-2015. As a teacher who is passionate about what she does, with two years of failing State Growth Scores, I know my days as a teacher are numbered. I am left with only one choice, to continue to act out of love for my students until the day comes when my district will be forced to remove me from the classroom and students I graciously serve.

 

My first act of love for my students, since the passing of this legislation and the absolute betrayal of my own elected officials, is the following letter I sent to the Board of Regents this afternoon.

 

Dear New York State Board of Regents:

 

This letter is in response to New York State Law S2006B-2015, dated March 31, 2015. I write you as a teacher of thirteen years who loves her profession and her students more than words could possibly capture. There has not been one day in the classroom that I wished away. Not one paycheck that I did not regard with awe over the fact that I could be paid to do a job I loved so deeply. Not one August that I did not greet with excitement in anticipation of new students, new challenges and new victories. Nor one end of school year I did not confront with sadness over the end of a ten-month partnership with my students filled with reading and writing and thinking and questioning.

 

Teaching is my passion. Every single day I ask myself what went wrong? Who did I not reach? What can I do tomorrow to push harder and support the growth of my students? I sincerely love teaching because after thirteen years, I am clear on only one thing – I will never have all of the answers. And I like that challenge. Each year brings new students, new families, new strengths and new areas of opportunity into my classroom. My voracious appetite for meeting their respective needs is confronted by the infinite possibilities that education offers.

 

This year, we had an interesting scenario. It became very clear on reading comprehension assessments that students understood what they were reading, but of the fifteen students in my class receiving Academic Intervention Services (AIS) for reading, out of a total of twenty-seven students, eight continuously earned failing scores on weekly assessments. We asked ourselves, is it the vocabulary in the questions? No. Is it vocabulary in the choices? No. We realized that students could not see the correct answers in the choices because they lacked the transferal skills to get themselves from what they knew the answers were to the choices given. We started giving the students the questions without choices, and having them write their own answers. Then we gave them the choices and they had to select the choices that most closely resembled their answers. Our failure rate dropped substantially from eight students to one to two students. This is what teaching is. Every single day we must go in, assess what our students need from us, and devise ways to meet those needs.

 

I often tell people that a teacher’s job is never, ever done. I could work around the clock twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and still have things I want to accomplish in the classroom. As teachers, we have to eek out as much time as we can before school, during school and after school, and spend that time on the work we determine offers our students the greatest return on investment. This is why grading assessments we provide is so important to us. Students and teachers require continual assessment feedback so instructional time can best serve students’ needs.

 

Where is all of this going? It boils down to assessment. Your board has been asked to craft an APPR plan that bases 50% of a teacher’s APPR on assessments you deem appropriate for this purpose. Much of what I am about to discuss pertains solely to the current grades three through eight state testing program, but please keep in mind that these thoughts relate to any assessment we deem appropriate for removing a child’s teacher from his/her classroom.

 

Any assessment we use for the state’s 50% of the APPR must:

 

1. Include reliability and validity testing that demonstrates the instrument’s ability to measure what we are asking it to measure. Assessment in New York State public school classrooms must measure a student’s progress toward New York State Standards.

 

2. Be created by an entity that does not also sell curricular materials to school districts. The 2013 New York State 6th ELA exam included proprietary material that Pearson had also included in its series, Reading Street, which it sells to districts. This is a serious conflict of interest.

 

3. Have the ability to measure all growth a student experiences during a school year. The current methodology provides simple scores of one, two, three and four limiting its ability show us where growth has or has not transpired, for a variety of reasons.

 

4. Inform teachers and parents of information both parties do not already know. We know who has difficulty reading and who does not. We must use an assessment that offers rich details about where our students struggles are, as well as what students are doing well.

 

If we continue on our current path, teachers like me who love what we do, and have an innate desire to be the best teachers we can for our students, will be gone. For the last two years, I have been given a one and a two respectively for my State Growth Score. If you proceed with the State Legislature’s plan, and your current method of assessments, you will be taking good teachers away from the students who need them, using fraudulent instruments. With your June 30th deadline looming, I beg you to contemplate the gravity of this system, and as the law prescribes, use the next few months to speak with teachers and parents who are invested in this system, to craft a plan that places children first.

 

In all earnest, I am willing to meet with you anytime to discuss the frailties of our current system and measures we can take to meet the law’s deadline in a way that best serves public school children. They are what matter most.

 

Warm wishes,

 

Melissa K. McMullan
6th Grade Teacher
Comsewogue School District
Port Jefferson Station, NY

Categories New York, Resistance, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers, Testing

Help These Teachers Make Robo-Call to Every Parent in Néw York: Opt Out!

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2015 //
13

A group of teachers in New York have an audacious idea. They are raising money to make a Robo-call to every public school parent in the state. They are close to their goal. They need your help.

They write:

“We have, in a little over a week, come very near to achieving what seemed like the impossible. At the time of this writing, we are on the final push to our funding goal. We did a tremendous amount of work, sometimes going without sleep or meals, and hope that our action inspires others. We have raised enough funds to place robocalls to strategic areas throughout New York, and our ultimate goal is to call the entire state, so donations are urgently needed at this time. Our ripple in New York will add to the wave being felt throughout the nation. To donate and help us complete our mission, go to:

http://www.crowdrise.org/refusethetestsrobocall.

I will contribute, will you? If they got $10 from everyone who reads this, they would succeed and keep going.

The billionaires have the money. We have the ideas, the enthusiasm, and the energy of millions of educators and parents. And we are on the right side of history. Not high-stakes testing. Not privatization. Great public schools for all children.

Categories Opt Out, Resistance, Students, Teachers, Testing
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