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John Flavin: How to Improve Education

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2014 //
13

John Flavin teaches language arts in a rural high school in Oregon.

He wrote this article for Oregonlive.com explaining what really matters in school reform.

Time and resources for teachers to prepare for the flood of federal mandates.

Class sizes of 22 or less. In his school, some classes have more than 40 students.

A restoration of options and electives. He wrote: “All across America students are stripped of drama, band, wood and metal shops, and dozens of other career-starters designed to serve a diverse population.”

A de-emphasis on standardized tests,which harm children with high needs.

He concludes:

“If you’re not a teacher, you ought to be saying to yourself: The enemy of America’s future is anyone who is opposed to guaranteed classroom sizes of 22 or less, increased professional development for teachers, diversified options for students and the elimination of standardized tests as we know them.”

Categories Class size, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Tom Loveless Answers Critics about Shanghai and PISA

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2014 //
22

Tom Loveless wrote an article criticizing OECD for allowing Shanghai to exclude the children of migrants from PISA testing, thus artificially boosting their scores. His article hit a hornet’s nest.

Loveless writes:

Andreas Schleicher of OECD-PISA wrote a response to my essays, as did Dr. Zhang Minxuan, President of Shanghai Normal University.  Marc Tucker, President and CEO of the National Center on Education and the Economy, joined Mr. Schleicher in publishing a third response in Education Week.  

Here he responds to the critics. 

Please read his valuable analysis of the critiques.

Here are his conclusions:

Recommendations and Conclusion

 

These convoluted explanations place PISA’s integrity at risk.

 

I now elaborate upon my previous recommendation.  The PISA Governing Board, the governing authority responsible for PISA’s adherence to basic standards of assessment, should commission an independent panel to investigate and report on the OECD-PISA’s arrangement with China.  Evidence should include: all solicitations of participation in PISA that were made to Chinese provinces–and their responses; all correspondence and agreements regarding sampling and the reporting of PISA scores, whether the agreements were made with the central government in Beijing or provincial authorities; and a full review of the substance and quality of data that were collected throughout China in 2009 and 2012.  All data previously collected should be released so that independent scholars can conduct secondary analyses and verify conclusions publicized over the past several years. 

 

In the meantime, the ever changing story of PISA’s special arrangement with China continues to cast doubt on the trustworthiness of PISA.  

 

A December 18, 2013 CNN interview featured Andreas Schleicher and two other guests.  The discussion took place in Shanghai.   Mr. Schleicher stated, “There is no question that rural schools in China do better than similar schools almost anywhere else in the world.” 

 

The secret rural data are alive again!  And, we are told, although we will never have a chance to see them, that there is no question what the data reveal.

 

The only Chinese educator on the panel objected to Mr. Schleicher’s assertion and argued that rural schools in China are under-resourced and in terrible condition.  Mr. Schleicher would not hear of it, responding, “If you are at a disadvantaged school in China, your chance to succeed is much greater than in much of the rest of the world.” 

 

Shanghai is back to being representative of China, the secret data have been resurrected, wild assertions about overcoming disadvantage in China are being promoted, and, once again, hukou and the plight of migrant children go unnoticed.

 

China has a long way to go in reforming hukou.  And the OECD has a long way to go in reforming PISA.

 

Categories Accountability, International, Testing

Montclair Public Schools: Under Siege

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2014 //
34

Montclair, New Jersey, has long been proud of its fine public schools. But these days, not even good schools and good districts are exempt from the corporate reform steamroller. At present, a substantial part of the community is at war with the school board and the Broad-trained superintendent. A group of dissident parents, who happen to be among leading scholars of education —–including Ira Shor, Stan Karp, and Michelle Fine—wrote the following description of the turmoil in Montclair.

PREFACE FROM MONTCLAIR CARES ABOUT SCHOOLS:

Montclair, New Jersey is a progressive town with highly-regarded public schools noted nationally for successfully desegregating through a districtwide magnet system. Kids of all colors go to all schools; families of all colors, classes, and sexual preferences are welcome here.

But the town now has a renegade board of education issuing subpoenas to uncover names of critics posting anonymously on blogs and websites. And we have a schools superintendent, hired by the board in fall 2012, who lacks state certification but was trained by the unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy. The superintendent, Penny MacCormack, came to Montclair from the NJ State Department of Education run by Christopher Cerf, another Broad graduate. Liberal Montclair, which voted overwhelmingly against Republican Governor Chris Christie, now has a superintendent from his administration.

Our school board, appointed by the mayor, took a destructive turn a few years ago by embracing austerity, cutting effective programs and essential classroom aides, ending services needed by students, while piling up multimillion-dollar budget surpluses year after year. The board also tried closing two successful and integrated schools, a plan it abandoned only after sustained parent protests.

Things went from bad to worse after MacCormack’s hiring following a secretive search. In true corporate-reform fashion, the board and MacCormack have restricted comments by the public and the local teachers‘ union president at meetings. Community management not public dialogue is its stock in trade. MacCormack hurriedly declared that Montclair was woefully behind on adapting the Common Core standards; she pushed a new “Strategic Plan” with a new layer of quarterly skills tests in every grade. After some of these new district assessments somehow got onto the Internet in the fall, the board launched an investigation and issued its subpoenas – including to a fellow board member – the only one to publicly question the superintendent’s policies- and to Google and a local online news site in an attempt to find out the identities of a local blogger and online commenters critical of the district leadership.

The ACLU of New Jersey sued on behalf of the blogger and following public protests, including from the Town Council, the board has withdrawn the subpoenas seeking identities of online critics. But the board’s subpoena against its own board member is still live and demands him to turn over emails and phone records, in fact, virtually all records of everyone he talks to in the community. You can see the subpoena here.

Our group, Montclair Cares About Schools, came together last spring out of concern over the destructive direction in the schools. We speak at board and Town Council meetings, hold public forums and workshops, send letters to the editor of the town paper, and have an active and popular Facebook page.

In December, Montclair Cares About Schools presented to the board and residents a timeline of how we got to this sad point in our district. An edited and abridged version is below.
_____

Timeline of a Debacle: “Just Six Months Ago…”
(issued Dec. 16, 2013)

Just six months ago, Montclair Cares About Schools asked the board to please slow down their plan to impose a new layer of quarterly, district-wide tests. Had the board listened to MCAS instead of ignoring our suggestion, the costly and divisive events since last June 23 could have been avoided.

June 2013: MCAS posted a petition online asking the board to slow down implementation of the planned quarterly assessments. Within 48 hours, 370 parents and community members signed online and another 40 signed a hard copy. Since then, online signers have grown to 560. At the board meeting that night, Montclair High School students presented their own petition signed by about 578 students also asking to slow down implementation of the new assessments.

The board refused to respond to the pleas to slow down. Instead, it rushed ahead recklessly.

It rushed ahead even though the new quarterly assessments and related curricula changes mandated by Superintendent MacCormack would come in the same year as a complex and burdensome new teacher evaluation system imposed by the State.

July and August 2013: The district recruited more than 100 teachers to develop the new quarterly assessments for every K-12 class. The superintendent maintained the new tests were necessary to get students ready for the upcoming state PARCC exams scheduled to begin in 2015.

>The public was told that the district would generate open-ended assessments, attuned to the unique characteristics and concerns of our high-performing district.

>By summer’s end, despite great cost and rush, only the first-quarter tests and lessons were ready, not the whole-year curriculum. School started in September with teachers not having the yearlong curriculum ready for them to plan their lessons.

>Teachers also learned that the assessments would have to be graded on a Scantron-ready metric. Our school curricula were being dumbed down to make them computer-friendly for the new PARCC testing en route to all classrooms.

>Although supposedly every Montclair student would be subject to the new layer of assessments, Advanced Placement students were exempt, making these new Scantron tests directed at only certain students, in a district where fairness and equity matter.

>We also have no evidence that any accommodations were planned for students in special education taking the new tests.

September 2013: At the start of school, students throughout the district were given ‘surprise’ pre-assessment tests. Many were on material not yet taught. We have a copy of a memo telling teachers to make these assessments difficult so that teachers could demonstrate students’ improvement on the next round of tests and to NOT share the pre-assessments or how students performed on them with students or parents.

Based on these unannounced, unprepared, and unnecessary pre-assessments, students were pulled out of regular classes for math and English language arts support, often without any notification or explanation to parents. This disturbed parents, frustrated those children pulled out of classes, and in many cases altered the racial makeup of classes.

October 2013: On Friday, October 25, the district learned that at least 14 of the district’s 60 first-quarter assessments suddenly appeared on an unprotected website on the Internet. Teachers were supposed to administer these tests the following week.

Three things happened in the wake of the online publication of the assessments:

1. Suspicion about how the assessments got online landed immediately on people who were publicly critical of the assessments, the board and the superintendent.

2. As copies of the published assessments began circulating among parents, the cover was blown off the Superintendent’s and board’s claims that these assessments were creative and teacher-generated. Many were canned short-answer tests, a low standard for assessment. Some had been copied verbatim from model state exams and some were clearly developmentally inappropriate for their grades. So much for the high-quality, teacher-generated assessments promised to the public.

3. The true cost of the assessments became known: $490,000. A half-million dollars of our taxes wasted by the board to get us into this mess, with a huge legal bill to follow.

October 28 or 29: According to Baristanet, a local online news outlet, the District filed a police report about the unauthorized publication of the assessments around October 28. As we understand it, the police did not pursue this case because they judged that no crime had been committed.

November 1: The board held a hastily called meeting to vote to hire its own attorney for what it claimed would be an “independent” investigation into the online publication of the assessments.

The board attorney was quoted in news reports that he would “cast a wide net” and would be issuing subpoenas to “blogs and websites.” At that same meeting however, board Pres. Robin Kulwin told reporters that she believed the “leak” was internal.

Why, if the board president believed the leak was internal – that is, caused accidentally or deliberately by someone who works for the district – did the board authorize its attorney to cast a wide net with subpoenas directed at outside parties? This key contradiction has never been explained. Why a big dragnet for a local problem with no evidence of criminal behavior presented?

December 4: The ACLU of New Jersey sued the board to quash subpoenas that the ACLU said were defective and beyond the limited investigative authority of a local school board. The ACLU had previously approached the board asking it to withdraw the subpoena to its client. But unlike other school districts in New Jersey approached by the ACLU on similar matters, our board refused to stop hounding its critics.

December 5: A state judge acknowledged the merits of the ACLU’s claims by granting a temporary restraining order against the board to prevent it from issuing any more subpoenas or taking further action on the ones issued.

December 9: The Montclair Township Council voted to refuse a school board request to investigate a computer network server shared by the town and school district. The council resolution declared that the investigation “is contributing to divisiveness and strife among the people of Montclair,[and] is resulting in the diversion and expenditure of substantial funds.”

December 16 board meeting: We ask the board, how much money has been poured into this punitive and pointless investigation for which you have provided no evidence of criminal activity? Why are you targeting your critics?

We propose that evidence points to the following scenario:

• The assessments had been placed by the district placed on an unprotected site (as confirmed by the board’s own computer network coordinator).

• The assessments were found on GoBookee, a “spider” or scavenger site that retrieves documents from the Internet and then tries to sell them online. Considering this and other Montclair school documents are on this site, we think it likely that this is how the assessments got online.
• We believe no one “leaked” the assessments but that they were poorly secured on the web portals open to teachers. Given the rush and lack of care in this entire process of creating and mandating these new assessments, this is not surprising.

No crime was committed here, and we think the board knows it. The only offenses have been by the board by engaging in a witch hunt – an investigation of parents, educators and community members critical of the board. This investigation has violated freedom of speech rights, embarrassed this respected town, and most likely, as the ACLU asserts, broken laws.

The township council has spoken, parents have spoken, educators have spoken. Enough.
The superintendent and board leadership should take responsibility for any security breach, apologize to the community and cease this destructive investigation.

______

Epilogue: As 2014 begins, Montclair Cares About Schools continues its fight to expose and stop the damage to our good schools caused by this board’s and superintendent’s top-down, test-focused management and by its failure to tolerate public dialogue about our public schools. Our group endeavors to show alternatives. We hold public forums, workshops, living-room meetings for parents. We invite everyone interested in public education to visit our Facebook page.

********************

In addition to this joint statement, Ira Shor wrote the following letter to the editor of the Montclair Times to complain about the influence of the Broad Foundation in Montclair:

Dec. 29, 2013

Is Billionaire Eli Broad Running Our Schools?​

Why is the District refusing to release items regarding the Superintendent’s relation to the Broad Foundation? On October 31, 2013, I filed a request under NJ’s Open Public Records Act(OPRA) for documents regarding Supt. MacCormack’s financial disclosure that she received “more than $2000” in 2013 from the Broad Foundation. We need to know how much “more than $2000” Broad is paying her and for what services. Contrary to OPRA law, Mr. Fleischer, her COO, provided no requested documents and did not explain why he refused. OPRA requires district officers to meet legal requests in 7 business days or explain in writing why not. Mr. Fleischer had 35 days but provided no Broad items and explained nothing.

What is the Superintendent hiding? Who does she work for–Montclair’s families or billionaire Eli Broad and his campaign to standardize public schools? She attended the unaccredited Broad Academy whose “grads” follow Broad’s playbook, imposing one-size-fits-all curricula, endless bubble-tests, and high-priced consultants and testing technology. We have a right to know if she answers to Broad or to us.

The Superintendent and our Board have recklessly disrupted our good schools and squandered taxes on ridiculous subpoenas, while refusing to spend yet another huge surplus on things our kids need: smaller classes, foreign language, aides in all classes, librarians in all schools, instrumental music, and after-school mentoring for at-risk kids. Listen to our over-tested kids reporting fear and stress; listen to our under-supported teachers at monthly Board meetings; then, you’ll agree we should roll back the Broad agenda and its assessment train wreck. The refusal of my OPRA request joins other illegal refusals from Mr. Fleischer and the Supt.’s office. Stop hiding from those you should be serving. Open your books and files.

Ira Shor
302 North Mountain Avenue
Montclair, NJ 07043
973-337-6783

Categories Broad Foundation, Cerf, Chris, Common Core, New Jersey, Testing

Nashville School Board Member Blocks Pearson “Nonsense Word” Test

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2014 //
71

Jill Speering, a retired teacher and reading specialist, is a member of the Metro Nashville school board and its most outspoken critic of high-stakes testing. She led a successful effort to block a Pearson contract to test reading by use of nonsense words. The test was intended to test decoding skills without the need for understanding. Speering pointed out that the committee that approved the contract contained no classroom teachers.

“In outlining her disapproval, Speering said a panel of 23 administrators used to recommend the assessment included no classroom teachers. “That’s one more reason why we have low teacher morale, ” she said. “When we ask teachers to administer an assessment we give them no voice in choosing the assessment.”

“She also took aim at the assessment’s definition of fluency — which emphasizes reading with speed — and its use of what are known as “nonsense words.” Those call on students to identify the phonetics and sounds of words not found in the dictionary. Speering believes employing them is a poor way to evaluate how well a child is understanding what he or she reads.”

The contract was deferred, not defeated. It is worth $357,200 to Pearson.

Categories Pearson, Tennessee, Testing

Why Common Core Tests Cause Scores to Collapse

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2014 //
57

Just as the holidays began, Education Week published a very important article explaining why Common Core testing causes a collapse of test scores.

Since most people were preoccupied with preparations for the holidays, it probably didn’t get much attention. But it should have because it unlocks the mystery if why state after state is experiencing a 30 point drop in passing rates on Common Core tests.

As Catherine Gewertz wrote:

“It’s one thing for all but a few states to agree on one shared set of academic standards. It’s quite another for them to agree on when students are “college ready” and to set that test score at a dauntingly high place. Yet that’s what two state assessment groups are doing.

“The two common-assessment consortia are taking early steps to align the “college readiness” achievement levels on their tests with the rigorous proficiency standard of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a move that is expected to set many states up for a steep drop in scores.

“After all, fewer than four in 10 children reached the “proficient” level on the 2013 NAEP in reading and math.”

I served on the NAEP governing board for seven years. NAEP “proficient” was never considered a passing mark; it signifies excellent academic performance. Only one state in the nation, Massachusetts, has 50% of its students at NAEP proficient.

It is absurd to set such a high bar for “passing.” It is a guarantee that most students will fail.

Why do we want an education system that stigmatizes 60-70% of all students as “failures?”

Is the purpose of education to develop citizens and healthy human beings or is it to sort and rank the population for selective colleges and the workplace?

Categories Common Core, NAEP, Testing

New York Superintendent: Regents “Reform” Agenda Is Wrong

By dianeravitch
January 4, 2014 //
34

Superintendent Steve Cohen of the Shoreham-Wading River School district on Long Island in New York is an outspoken and clear-thinking critic of the state’s “reform” policies, all of which are derived from Race to the Top. Since the state won $700 million, the Regents have wreaked havoc in every district with their data-based and destructive policies.

This article appeared in the Riverhead News-Review:

Cohen: Regents Reform is wrongheaded

By Steven Cohen

In 2001, Congress reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, commonly known as No Child Left Behind. At the time there was strong bipartisan support for the idea that no children in the U.S. should fail to receive a sound public education, especially the poor among them. Who wouldn’t support such a noble cause? Twelve years later, however, we contend with the effects of the implementation of this law, which are nothing short of lamentable. In New York, this national initiative is spearheaded by the Board of Regents, a non-elected body of 17 citizens who control all education policy in the state and oversee the State Education Department, whose leader is the commissioner of education, currently Dr. John King Jr.

In a March 2012 presentation to the New York State School Boards Association, Dr. King outlined the Regents Reform Agenda. According to Dr. King, who follows in a long line of school “reform” advocates, there is a general crisis in public education. Most high school graduates, Dr. King tells us, are not “college and career ready.” Children do not get the education they need to supply U.S. businesses with skilled workers, according to the Regents, because the state does not have high academic standards, and because our schools lack effective instruction and supervision. Looking to get $700 million from the federal government’s Race-to-the-Top initiative (a one-time payment of about 3% of total annual state spending on education, half of which was earmarked to create a data system), the Regents agreed to tie every local school district’s curriculum to national learning standards, known as Common Core Standards. The Regents also agreed to base the evaluation of teachers and principals on standardized tests in English and mathematics (grades 3-8) that all students are required to take, including students with special needs and those who do not speak or write English as their native language. This Reform Agenda diminishes subjects other than English and mathematics: history, science, art, music, occupational education, and athletics apparently are no longer essential parts of a high-quality education. The Common Core Standards themselves are based on a rigid view of childhood development, forcing all elementary children to learn at the same rate. And the Reform Agenda has squandered a staggering amount of instructional time and money to create a “data driven culture” rife with technical and equity problems.

But there is no “general” crisis. The Regents bases its Reform Agenda on an incorrect diagnosis. And this mistake leads to bad public policy. Contrary to what the Regents claim, there are many excellent public schools and public school districts in New York and the nation. Many of these districts graduate well over 90 percent of their students. Many high school seniors are accepted to, and flourish in, the nation’s best universities (Long Island, if considered as a separate state, would have the best public education system in the nation.) Most significant, if one considers family income, American students perform as well on standardized tests as students in any country in the world. The Regents Reform Agenda is wrongheaded because it does not focus first and foremost on providing poor children with the material and emotional support they need to focus on learning in school (22 percent of the children in the U.S. live in poverty, 45 percent in low-income families). To no one’s surprise, scores on the most recent state tests correlated highly with the incomes of the families of the children who took them. Unfortunately, the Regents Reform Agenda distracts teachers and principals in successful schools from doing what works, while poor students do not get the support they need to focus every day on “school” learning. (To be sure, poor children learn a great deal, but their real-life curriculum does not follow the Common Core.)

Beyond these concerns with the Regents Reform Agenda lies another, perhaps even more disturbing, story. Most of the Regents send their own children to private schools, so they, unlike the rest of us, have no personal stake in the roll-out of their ambitious, but untested, “reform” program. (In fact, the private schools to which they send their children do not embrace this Reform Agenda!) And although “reformers” do not like us to notice, many of them have personal ties to companies that profit from selling educational materials to public schools, creating an unwise conflict of interest. (There is an annual $500 billion market in public education in the U.S., generated from school taxes.)

“Reformers” also insist that superior alternatives to locally controlled public education exist — charter schools. However, they are reluctant to admit many troubling facts about these schools: charter schools are funded by public school taxes, but many of them also receive large donations from private foundations and from individuals who have interests in companies that receive public school taxes; many charters have produced test results that do not compare favorably with their public school counterparts; many charters appear to offer superior education because they do not accept students with disabilities, or students who speak languages other than English, or because they encourage students who do not conform to the charter’s rules and expectations to drop out of school. Too many charters divert resources from local public schools, whose revenues are now, more or less, fixed by the new tax levy limit law, while they receive generous donations from businesses and foundations that seek to privatize public education.

Perhaps the Regents should consider some new ideas to “leave no child behind:” first, insist that the governor and Legislature ensure that all children in the state live in safe neighborhoods, that their parents have good jobs, that they have prenatal care, early childhood education, and adequate medical and social services; second, put aside the expensive and faulty APPR initiative, and instead use audit teams of professional educators to issue written reports of all school districts every several years; third, extend the probationary period for teachers and principals from the current three years to six years, to provide an apprentice period as well as sufficient time to make informed decisions about the potential of young teachers and principals.

Bring all children, especially the poorest, to school every day, ready to learn. Evaluate and support teachers and principals in meaningful ways based on detailed analysis of each teacher’s and each principal’s strengths and weaknesses. Assess school districts in depth, from student work to teacher training to Board of Education leadership. If the Regents were to consider these changes, and reject superficial data and calls to privatize this essential public institution, all children might come to school eagerly, districts (and the teachers, principals, and yes, superintendents, who work in them) would be assessed realistically by legitimate and competent external authorities and be provided meaningful direction for improvement, and all new teachers and principals would have to meet a threshold of professional competence that is demanding and fair before they would receive tenure. The Regents Reform Agenda creates problems where none exist, and fails to meet genuine challenges.
It’s time the Regents considered other paths to defend this fundamental democratic institution.

Steven R. Cohen, Ph.D., is superintendent of schools for Shoreham-Wading River School District.

Categories Common Core, Education Reform, New York, Race to the Top, Testing

Jersey Jazzman: Why Would Arne Duncan Try to Block Joshua Starr’s Appointment in NYC?

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2014 //
36

According to a report by Valerie Strauss in the “Washington Post,” Secretary Duncan urged Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio not to appoint Joshua Starr, superintendent in Montgomery County, as chancellor of the NYC public schools. This allegedly was Duncan’s revenge for Starr’s public call for a three-year moratorium on standardized testing.

Testing, of course, is the linchpin of Duncan’s Race to the Top. Duncan may be touchy because Race to the Top has no new funding, gets poor results, is losing steam and its luster, or because of growing popular resistance to Common Core, which is a high priority for the Department of Education, even though it is legally prohibited from attempting to influence curriculum or instruction in the nation’s schools.

Why would Duncan intervene in a strictly local personnel decision, which is unusual, to say the least, for a cabinet member?

Jersey Jazzman explains it here.

Bottom line, according to JJ: Duncan is jealous of Starr because he is a real educator, unlike Duncan.

He writes:

“Maybe this is what bothers Duncan the most about Starr: unlike the SecEd, Starr has displayed courage on the thorny issues of tracking, race, and desegregation. Unlike Duncan, Starr has stood behind teachers, working with them to continue using a model teacher evaluation system, and fighting to keep it even as Duncan pushes his test-based evaluation madness. Unlike Duncan, Starr appears to have the respect of his parents, teachers, and students; even the reformies give him back-handed compliments. And, unlike Duncan, Starr is thoughtful and articulate.”

– See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-petty-jealousy-of-arne-duncan.html#sthash.cFpXm5hZ.dpuf

Categories Duncan, Arne, Race to the Top, Testing

Breaking News: Mayor-Elect Chooses an Educator to Lead NYC Schools!

By dianeravitch
December 30, 2013 //
54

For the past dozen years, New York City has had a procession of school chancellors who were not educators: a banker, a prosecutor, a publisher, a former deputy mayor.

Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio made a daring–and wise– decision to select a professional educator to run the nation’s largest school system, which enrolls 1.2 million students. His search narrowed to three excellent candidates, all of whom are career professional educators: Joshua Starr, superintendent of the Montgomery County public schools, known for his strong stand against standardized testing; Kathleen Cashin, a member of the New York Board of Regents, who has valiantly opposed its unwise emphasis on high-stakes testing; and Carmen Farina, a seasoned educator and former deputy chancellor in the city school system.

De Blasio selected Farina, who promises to bring a new era of collaboration with parents, teachers, and principals. She brings humor, passion, and intelligence to the job. She spoke at the announcement about the joy of learning, a term unheard in the past dozen years. She spoke of celebrating the good work of dedicated professionals.

It is a new day in New York City. The era of punishing, blaming, and shaming professional educators is over. De Blasio announced that he will immediately scrap the A-F grading system that Mayor Bloomberg picked up from Governor Jeb Bush. He will initiate a moratorium on school closings and charter co-locations. Watch for more changes in store.

This is a great turn of events, not only for New York City, but for the nation.

Thank you, Mayor de Blasio.

Congratulations to our new Chancellor, Carmen Farina.

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, New York City, Supporting public schools, Testing

California Governor Jerry Brown Blasts Test-Based Reform

By dianeravitch
December 30, 2013 //
47

Governor Jerry Brown is certainly the most interesting and thoughtful state leader on education.

In 2009, when he was state attorney general, he wrote a blistering rebuke to Arne Duncan in opposition to Race to the Top.

He has consistently opposed the overemphasis on standardized testing.

In 2011, he vetoed legislation that didn’t go far enough to stop the misuse of test scores.

Earlier this year the state suspended state testing to prepare for Common Core testing, defying Duncan’s specific order to continue state testing.

Several days ago, Brown blasted state and national standards and tests, saying that learning was highly personal and individual. He said that neither Washington nor Sacramento should play a large role in telling teachers what to teach and what students should learn. He is especially critical of standardized testing.

This is all amazing, not only because a governor with a national profile is saying this but because California has committed more than a billion dollars to adopting the Common Core standards.

Which raises the question, Does Governor Brown know that the state is doing what he says he opposes?

Categories California, Common Core, Testing

Mark Naison for Governor in 2014!

By dianeravitch
December 30, 2013 //
37

Every state should have a write-in candidate–or a major party candidate–who shares the agenda of the Restore Recess Party.

I pledge to support the candidacy of Mark Naison for Governor of New York in 2014.

Let’s start a national movement that spreads everywhere and gets the attention of candidates who want the votes of parents, grandparents, and educators and everyone else who care about kids and the future of our society as a place of creativity and ingenuity, not a land of test-taking robots. If we organize, if we mobilize, if we make our voices heard, then the major party candidates will copy our agenda.

This is from Mark:

Why I  Agreed to Be a “Write in Candidate” for the Governor of New York State of the Restore Recess Party
 
1. To let Andrew  Governor Andrew Cuomo know there is a price for showing contempt for the parents, teachers and students of New York State and placing Data over the needs of Students.
Cuomo’s education playbook was shaped by two wealthy “Astro Turf” education policy organizations- Democrats for Education Reform, and Students First. He hoped to parlay the policy and the financial support of these groups into a future presidential run. Our little campaign is reminder how flawed those plans were2. To let the people of New York State know what would need to be done to take the huge burden of Testing out of the public schools and to make schools places where students of all backgrounds are treasured and empowered and where curriculum and teaching is tailored to THEIR needs, not the quest of the nation’s Corporations for a disciplined obedient labor force. Schools organized that way would attract and retain great teachers. We have to radically change course from the policy Governor Cuomo has chosen.

Restore Recess Party New York State- Education Program

 
1. Restore Recess. No use of Recess or Physical Education time for Test prep
2. Cut the state testing budget in half and use the money to lower class size and fund arts programs, sports programs and school counselors.
3. No Data Sharing. No information about children can be shared with anyone outside of the school district without parental permission
4 Create a new Education Policy Committee to replace the Education Reform Commission, and require it to have a majority of currently active teachers and parents
5. End the use of student test scores in teacher evaluations.
6. Cancel all State Education Contracts with for profit companies
7. Stop all School Closings- Help Schools in Trouble, Don’t Close Them
8. End state support for the Common Core Standards- Leave that decision up to each individual school district. 
9. Multiply the number of portfolio schools which require no tests at all. Let teachers and parents form them within the public school system, not as charters
10. Bring back vocational and technical education into every school district if parents and teachers support it
11. Withdraw from Race to the Top and take no Federal Funds that require more testing, more school closings, or adoption of Common Core Standards
12. Make sure all schools, especially those in high poverty areas, have strong after school programs.
13, Make Community History welcome in the schools.
14. Encourage the creation of school farms and gardens.15. Exempt special needs students from all state tests and require that they get instruction appropriate to their developmental level and aptitudes
15. Exempt special needs students from all state tests and require that they get instruction appropriate to their developmental level and aptitudes

 

Categories Education Reform, Testing
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