Bianca Tanis teaches young children in New York. She is a founding member of NYSAPE, New York Dtate Alliance of Parents and Educators. She is also a teacher of children with special needs.
Frustrated by the state’s indifference to the needs of young children, she wrote this post and interviewed teachers about what matters most for teaching and learning: PLAY.
The latest test results show the continuing strength of the Opt Out Movement in New York state. Every year, the numbers must be renewed, as eighth graders move on to a non-tested grade and new students arrive in third grade. Despite efforts by state officials to placate the movement, it still hovers at about 20% of all students in the state.
http://www.nysape.org/nysape-pr-2017-opt-out-results.html
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 24, 2017
More information contact:
Lisa Rudley (917) 414-9190; nys.allies@gmail.com
Jeanette Deutermann (516) 902-9228; nys.allies@gmail.com
NYS Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE)
2017 Test Boycott Numbers Remain High; Parents from all Demographics Continue to Reject Test & Punish System
Over 225,000 parents across the state, including tens of thousands of first-time refusers, rejected the state’s test-and-punish system, as evidenced by a third consecutive year of opt out numbers hovering near 20%. This is remarkable given that NYSED and local districts continue their attempts to squelch opt out by distributing misleading information and threatening dire consequences that create an environment of confusion and fear for families.
While Commissioner Elia would like to portray students who boycott the state ELA and math tests as ‘white students in rich or average wealth districts’, the data says differently. Only 8% of public school districts even met the required 95% testing participation rate, demonstrating how parents from all districts and demographics are boycotting the testing regime.*
The Board of Regents approved a reduction in state testing from 6 to 4 days (combined ELA and math) at their May meeting. While this is a step in the right direction, significant problems remain. Due to Commissioner Elia’s untimed testing mandate, many students continue to sit for up to 6 hours of testing per day; the Common Core standards, now rebranded the Next Generation Learning Standards, are still far from developmentally appropriate; and student data privacy is still at significant risk. Rather than focusing on the work that needs to be done, including truly overhauling the standards and creating meaningful and developmentally appropriate assessments, Commissioner Elia continues to be divisive, undermining the direction the Board of Regents and the trust of New Yorkers.
Jeanette Deutermann, Long Island public school parent, Long Island Opt Out founder and founding member of NYSAPE said, “While State education officials and corporate-reform lobbyist interests debate and interpret the assessment results and opt out numbers using the usual rhetoric, we see parents from all school districts including first-time refusers, overwhelmingly rejecting this test and punish system. Not only have they chosen to protect their children, but they have also joined our community of parents committed to advocating for whole-child policies in our classrooms. This network of hundreds of thousands of advocates will continue to grow and develop strategies to fight against those who wish to profit from our children.”
“NYSED continues to ignore best practices for children and New York State Schools. The test score results only shine a light on the fact that NYSED continues to try and mislead parents and teachers. NYSED has a long way to go to regain the trust of parents and educators in New York State. Opt Out is remaining steady and is adding thousands of new parents each year,” said Marla Kilfoyle, Long Island public school parent, educator and Executive Director of BATs.
Eileen Graham, Rochester public school parent and founder of the Black Student Leadership organization, expressed, “I would like to see more realistic efforts towards meeting the needs of children and not making our children testing ‘lab rats.’ I’m extremely angry that we keep obsessing over testing; instead of partnering with teachers and parents to ensure our children discover their greatness and learn the brilliance they bring to their schools and the world.”
Bianca Tanis, Ulster County public school parent, educator and founding member of NYSAPE, said, “We are five years into the State’s implementation of these clearly flawed standards and assessments and we are still labeling 60% of our students as failures. The Next Generation Learning Standards are nothing more than a rebranded version of the Common Core, adhering to the same invalid back-mapping methodology and lacking any basis in research or evidence. It is time to scrap these shoddy standards and assessments and start over.”
“These tests aren’t serving any purpose other than to keep the testing treadmill turning, preventing meaningful assessment alternatives from emerging and perpetuating unworkable teacher evaluation models. This testing system stifles children’s thirst for learning and is being used to usher in pervasive computer-based testing activity,” said Fred Smith, testing specialist and former administrative analyst for New York City public schools.
Kemala Karmen, Brooklyn public school parent and founding member of NYC Opt Out said, “The Commissioner, and others, including NYC’s mayor and chancellor, disingenuously use the test scores to boast that students are making “progress.” Progress on standardized tests can only be measured if the testing instrument, conditions, and manner of scoring remain consistent from year to year. This is not the case. Changes this year include some students taking the tests on computers rather than paper and some students having questions read aloud (meaning that they are no longer being tested on decoding, as in previous years). As ever, the determination of what raw score equals “proficient” changes every year and the untimed policy (and failure to track how long students are actually spending) makes direct comparison even less tenable.”
Johanna Garcia, NYC public school parent and President of the District 6 Community Education Council said, “There were many reports of intentional misinformation that bordered on students’ and parents’ civil rights being violated. If NYSED and NYCDOE had confidence in the testing regime, they wouldn’t have to heavily invest in policies that condoned internal threats and scare tactics. Because of their fear mongering, we see classrooms with students learning in fear. We need to finally have a public education system that’s accountable to the students’ learning instead of false numbers that further political agendas.”
New York parents remain steadfast in their advocacy for stronger child-centered policies and will continue to boycott state tests that are a waste of precious resources that would be better served addressing the opportunity gap.
* Participation rate calculated by counting NYC as one district (as NYSED itself often does). Public schools only (not charter schools).
NYSAPE is a grassroots coalition with over 50 parent and educator groups across the state.
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You know how you can pick up a book, start reading, start annotating with underlining and exclamation points, then realize you are marking up almost every word?
That is Steve Nelson’s “First Do No Harm.” It is chicken soup for the educator’s soul.
Nelson recently retired as head of the progressive Calhoun School in New York City. He also just joined the board of the Network for Public Education because he wants to devote his time to the fight for better public schools for all children.
He describes progressive education as ways to engage children in thinking critically, asking questions, and engaging creatively in play and work. He knows it is endangered, even though children thrive when given the opportunity to love learning.
He recognizes the soul-deadening approach of no-excuses charters and suggests that they exhibit unconscious racism. Maybe not always unconscious.
He points out that affluent communities think they have great public schools, without recognizing that their schools are gifted by the privilege of parents and the community. The same is true of elite private schools, whose students are drawn mostly from wealthy families with every financial advantage.
Every effort to standardize education–whether it is NCLB or Common Core– robs children of the chance to think for themselves. Such top-down programs demand conformity, not critical thinking or creativity. Indeed they punish students who think differently.
Nelson goes into great detail about the harm inflicted on children by no-excuses charter schools like KIPP and Democracy Prep.
He stands strongly against vouchers, which typically are used in religious schools, where children are subject to indoctrination.
Nelson understands the link between education and democracy, education for freedom.
I recommend this book to you.
Back in the days when I was on the Dark side, ensconced in the well-funded right side of the political spectrum, I was very close to Checker Finn. Checker and I were like brother and sister. We wrote a book together. We wrote essays and manifestos together. We laughed together. Our families were friends.
One thing we always agreed on: students should have much more than the basics of reading and math. We criticized NCLB for its limited focus on reading and math and nothing more. We believed that students should have classes in history and literature taught by superb teachers. We were strong advocates for the humanities, and we even organized conferences promoting the humanities.
So, imagine my surprise when I saw that Checker recently endorsed computer-based instruction! Aka “personalized” learning, which I call depersonalized learning.
Checker wrote:
“I am 200 percent in favor of personalized learning, defined as enabling every child to move through the prescribed curriculum at his or her own speed, progressing on the basis of individual mastery of important skills and knowledge rather than in lockstep according to age, grade level, and end-of-year assessments. (I’m 200 percent opposed to the “let everyone learn whatever they want to whenever they want to learn it” version.)
“There is nothing beneficial to kids about declaring that every ten-year-old belongs in something called “fifth grade” and that all will proceed to “sixth grade” when they get a year older, get passing marks from their teachers, and perform acceptably on “grade-level” tests at year’s end.
“That’s not how it worked in the one-room schoolhouses of yesteryear, and it’s oblivious to the many ways that children differ from each other, the ways their modes and rates of learning differ, how widely their starting achievement levels differ, and how their interests, brains, and outside circumstances often cause them to learn different subjects at unequal speeds—and to move faster and slower, deeper or shallower, at different points in their lives, even at different points within a “school year.””
Checker is now a member of the Maryland Board of Education. So he is not just theorizing.
I wrote a note to Checker, whom I have seldom seen in the past eight years:
“Dear Checker,
“Despite our ideological and political differences, I do love you. I always will.
“That said, I could not disagree more with your article about children being taught by computers. We used to write articles and even a book together about the importance of the humanities, of humane teaching and learning. You know, I know, that children will never learn to love history and English from a computer. They get turned on by a teacher who loves literature, loves history and is passionate about sharing it with students.
“You went to a great school with teachers like that and small classes. Didn’t you sit around a table, just 12 of you, and discuss and listen and learn? Didn’t you send both your kids to the same kind of schools? Why would you want other people’s kids plunked in front of a computer all day? That’s not the kind of education we once believed in and advocated for.
“Diane”
I warned him that I planned to blog about his endorsement of computer-based instruction.
Checker responded:
“The main answer is that you misread my case for personalized learning as if it consists of strapping kids to a computer and having them learn only that way. I never said or wrote that and I don’t think it. The technology–“blended learning” style–can be a huge assist to the teacher, school and pupil and liberates the kids in part from the disadvantages of “batch processing.” One thing I’ve learned in recent years is that even high priced private schools with small classes are NOT always good at dealing with the educational needs of gifted kids and others who for whatever reason don’t fit in with the current lesson plan. Some gifted teachers manage differentiation much better than others but it’s really hard to do and the wider the spread within the class (and of course the larger the class) the harder it is to do. Technology can help a bunch but it’s not INSTEAD of teachers; it’s a supplement.
“Best, Checker”
If all he meant was to use computers in the classroom, that’s a duh moment. That’s nothing new! What is being sold these days as “personalized learning” is the use of technology for embedded instruction and assessment, all while data-mining. As New York Commissioner MaryEllen Elia once explained at a meeting of NYSAPE members that I arranged, annual tests will no longer be needed when assessments are embedded, and students are continuously assessed. That’s personalized learning: moving at your own speed through a scripted curriculum.
At best, we have a misunderstanding. At worst, Checker will lend his considerable influence to methods that will standardize teaching, remove the need for great teachers, demoralize teachers, and subvert the teaching of the humanities.
Sad. So sad.
The ACT scores for Louisiana are in, and Mercedes Schneider reports that the news for the New Orleans charter district is not good.
We continue to hear reformers boast about the New Orleans “miracle,” but the evidence is non-existent. It is just recycling of stale propaganda for privatization. It has been 12 years since Hurricane Katrina wiped out large swaths of the city, along with the public school system. Had there been a dramatic improvement as a result of the switch to private charter schools, there wouldn’t be any controversy about it.
The new ACT scores show how unimpressive the charter district is.
Schneider says that, “In order for a high school graduate to gain unconditional admission to Louisiana State University (LSU), she/he must have an ACT composite score of 22.”
As you will see in her post, there are 13 high schools in the Recovery School District. None reached a score of 19. Only three cracked 18.
Schneider says that Dtate Superintebdent John White masked the low ACT scores by combining the high schools of the RSD with those of the higher-performing Orleans Parish School Board.
Don’t expect to read about this in any of the media that have invested in the miracle narrative.
Education Next is a publication funded by conservative foundations and staffed by conservative editors and writers. It supports charters, vouchers, school choice, high-stakes testing, the commodification of education, and the education industry.
Here are the results of its latest poll:
“The 2017 Education Next annual survey of American public opinion on education shows public support for charter schools has dropped, even as opposition to school vouchers and tax credits for private-school scholarships has declined. Opposition to the Common Core State Standards seems to have finally leveled off. When the “Common Core” name is not mentioned, support for the same standards across states rises among both Democrats and Republicans. Meanwhile, support for the federal role in education policy has waned. This year’s poll also finds that President Trump’s policy preferences widen the partisan divide on issues such as charter schools, Common Core, tax credits, and merit pay for teachers.
“Among the key findings:
“Charter school support drops. In a dramatic change of opinion over the past year, support for charter schools has declined by 12 percentage points, from 51% last year to only 39% this year (36% opposed). Support has fallen by 13 percentage points among Republicans and by 11 percentage points among Democrats, to 47% and 34% support respectively, leaving the partisan gap on the issue largely unchanged. Support for charters among blacks has dropped from 46% to 37% and among Hispanics from 44% to 39%.
“Opposition to private school choice declines despite partisan differences. Opposition to universal vouchers, which give all families a wider choice, has declined from 44% to 37%, while support for vouchers targeted to low-income parents has increased by six percentage points (43% in 2017 up from 37% in 2016). However, an analysis of individuals by political party reveals that support for universal vouchers has increased by 13 percentage points among Republicans (to 54%) but fallen by 9 percentage points (to 40%) among Democrats, whereas in 2016, Democrats were more supportive than Republicans of universal vouchers by an 8-percentage point margin. Opposition to tax-credit funded scholarships has declined from 29% to 24%.
“Support for national standards rises while opposition to Common Core levels off. Though support for Common Core plummeted between 2013 and 2016, the downward trend has leveled off, with support standing at 41% (38% opposed) in 2017, virtually the same as in 2016. Support for standards that are the same in all states is, at 61%, 20 percentage points higher when the name is not mentioned (6 percentage points higher than in 2016). While there remains a partisan divide in support for Common Core (32% in favor among Republicans and 49% among Democrats), support rises to 64% and 61%, respectively, when the name is not mentioned, eliminating the partisan gap.
“Support for local control of schools is on the rise. Although a plurality of the public continues to think accountability policy should mostly be a state responsibility, the latest poll numbers show that the public has shifted away from federal towards local control of schools. Only 36% of the public think the federal government should play the largest role in setting standards, down 5 percentage points from 2015; only 13% think it should identify failing schools, also down 5 percentage points; and only 16% think the federal government should be responsible for fixing schools, down 4 percentage points. Democratic support for federal decision-making has dropped by 8, 6, and 7 percentage points, respectively. The share of the public thinking these policies should be a local responsibility has risen by 4, 6, and 7 percentage points, respectively, for the three areas.
“Information about cost and earnings has little impact on college-going preferences–except among Hispanics. The latest poll shows that two-thirds of the public want their child to pursue a 4-year degree, while only 22% prefer a 2-year degree. Among white respondents with a 4-year college degree, 88% want their child to pursue a 4-year degree, compared to 57% of white respondents without a 4-year college degree. Most respondents, when they are informed as to the average costs and earnings associated with 2-year versus 4-year degrees, do not change their preferences. For Hispanics, however, providing both types of information shifts their preference for a 4-year degree to 72%, from 61% when no information is provided. This shift reverses the white-Hispanic gap in preferences for a 4-year degree. These findings emerge from an experiment where a randomly chosen group within the sample receives financial information while another group does not.
“The Trump Effect. On four issues—Common Core, charter schools, tax credits, and merit pay for teachers—the poll examines whether President Trump’s endorsement of a policy has a polarizing effect on public opinion by telling half of the sample the president’s position while not supplying this information to the other. EdNext conducted similar experiments in 2009 and 2010 during President Obama’s first two years in office. In 2009, Obama enjoyed a period of bipartisan support during which he moved public opinion toward his position, though the effect waned in 2010. Trump has not enjoyed such a “honeymoon” period (see figure). When informed of Trump’s position, Republicans move toward it on three of the four issues, including a 15 percentage-point increase in support for charter schools. However, Trump fails to persuade Democrats, who move away from the president’s position on two of the four issues, including a 14 percentage-point decrease in support for merit pay. These offsetting effects leave overall public opinion on these issues largely unchanged.”
One can draw different conclusions from this poll, but I am impressed by the stunning drop in public support for privately managed charter schools. As the public learns more about them, it likes them less. The steady drumbeat of charter scandals is getting through to the public. The scandals in Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Arizona, California, and elsewhere may be taking a toll on public estimation of charters. There is a glimmering of understanding that charters are unaccountable and that every dollar for a charter is taken away from public schools. The public is beginning to wonder about the value of funding two systems, one selective, the other open to all. One subject to democratic governance, the other controlled by private, self-selected boards.
This is a delightful article by teacher-historian John Thompson, written with Stanley Hupfeld, a retired hospital executive in Oklahoma City.
They write:
“For over 15 years, the OKCPS has adopted the normative instruction-driven, curriculum-driven approach to school improvement. The key to these policies is holding individuals accountable for measurable increases in student performance. The system has done a respectable job of implementing that game plan, but there is a growing body of research explaining why it simply can’t work with schools facing the challenges in our poorest schools. To turn around schools with extreme concentrations of children from generational poverty who have endured multiple traumas, schooling must become a team effort…
“Dipesh Navsaria, keynote speaker at the Potts Family Foundation Oklahoma Early Childhood Coalition Business Summit, also explains that once every student knows he has a mentor who is “crazy about him,” meaningful learning will follow. Navsaria then reviews the scientific evidence on why schools must make education fun. Research shows that the first 1,000 days of life are the key to closing the achievement gap. As Navsaria explains, we must restore play to its rightful place in elementary schools.
“We know the district teachers love their students. But this is not the point. What has been left out is a culture that promotes and sustains an aura of love and fun. Common sense tells us this is so — but now so does the research. Nothing less than a cultural transformation is necessary — not the program of the month.”
Eliza Shapiro writes about New York City for Politico.
She wrote a somewhat wistful article about why New York City was no longer “the nation’s education reform capital.”
For one brief shining moment, she suggests, New York City had the chance to expand its privately managed charter schools and to break the grip of the teachers’ union. It came “this close” to evaluating teachers by test scores. It was near to a point where it might have eliminated tenure and seniority.
All of this is supposedly reform?
Well, as she well knows, this is the agenda of hedge fund managers and others on Wall Street. This is the agenda of the billionaires who never set foot in a public school and whose children will never go to public school.
What stopped the headlong rush to crush public schools and teachers’ unions?
Parents. The New York State Allies for Public Education, a coalition of 50 parent and educator groups (not the union), that organized the mass opt outs from testing.
When twenty percent of the parents in the state with children in grades 3-8 refused to allow their children to take the tests, Governor Cuomo stopped in his tracks. He had been gung-ho to evaluate teachers by student test scores; he boldly claimed to be the state’s charter school champion (even though only 3% of the state’s children were enrolled in charter schools). But when the opt out started, he realized he had a political problem. He hired Jere Hochman, the thoughtful superintendent of the Bedford Central public schools, to advise him, and for the first time, he had an experienced educator calming his passions. He formed a commission and grew silent.
Sheri Lederman, a much-loved teacher in the Great Neck public schools, challenged her evaluation, and the judge agreed with her that it was arbitrary and capricious.
The American Statistical Association said that the test-based evaluations in which Cuomo put so much stock were inappropriate for evaluating individual teachers.
Shapiro seems unaware of most of these developments. Her framework is: charter supporters=good; unions=bad; firing teachers at will without cause=good; tenure=bad.
She insists on seeing the New York City story through the framework of “reformers vs. union.” It would have made more sense to look at the NYC story as “parents (in New York State, not New York City) vs. high-stakes testing. Research vs. Cuomo.
Now that the reform laurels are no longer in New York City, she suggests that readers look to Louisiana and D.C. instead, both of which are among the lowest performing jurisdictions in the nation.
I want to suggest to Eliza Shapiro that she read my last two books: The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (rev., 2016); and Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools. She should read Mercedes Schneider on John White in Louisiana and John Merrow on the subject of the D.C. “miracle” that wasn’t. (John Merrow and Mary Levy will have an article in the next issue of the Washington Monthly that takes apart the D.C. “miracle.” but in the meanwhile Shapiro can read this post that Merrow wrote: https://themerrowreport.com/2017/08/08/touching-the-elephant/comment-page-1/
If she contacts me, I will send her both books at my expense. If she reads them, she will be a better education writer. Certainly better informed.
John Merrow has been digging deep into the facts about the D.C schools, working with a veteran D.C. researcher and civil rights attorney, Mary Levy. Their article will appear in the next issue of The Washington Monthly. They decided to do the research and publish the results after reading Tom Toch’s paean to Michelle Rhee’s “reforms.”
Merrow jumped the gun when he read what purported to be new research about Rhee’s IMPACT teacher evaluation program, claiming that this test-based evaluation had been a great success. That did it for Merrow.
We have heard that D.C. is the fastest improving urban district in the nation. But, says Merrow, this claim must be qualified:
“Despite small overall increases, minority and low-income scores lag far behind the NAEP’s big-city average, and the already huge achievement gaps have actually widened. From 2007 to 2015, the NAEP reading scores of low-income eighth graders increased just 1 point, from 232 to 233, while scores of non-low-income students (called “others” in NAEP-speak) climbed 31 points, from 250 to 281. Over that same time period, the percentage of low-income students scoring at the “proficient” level remained at an embarrassingly low 8 percent, while proficiency among “others” climbed from 22 percent to 53 percent. An analysis of the data by race between 2007 and 2015 is also discouraging: black proficiency increased 3 points, from 8 percent to 11 percent, while Hispanic proficiency actually declined, from 18 percent to 17 percent. In 2007 the white student population was not large enough to be reported, but in 2015 white proficiency was at 75 percent.”
But hasn’t IMPACT been a huge success? No, says Merrow:
“Under Rhee and Henderson, spending on non-teaching personnel has swollen dramatically. According to the latest statistics from Census Bureau fiscal reports, DCPS central office spending in 2015 was 9.5 percent of total current expenditures, compared to 1 percent 4 or less in surrounding districts. Today DCPS central offices have one employee for every sixty-four students, a striking change over the pre-Rhee/Henderson era ratio of one to 113 students. Those central office dollars could have been used to provide wraparound social services for children, services that would have allowed teachers to be more effective.
“Many of these highly paid non-teachers spend their days watching over teachers in scheduled and unscheduled classroom observations, generally lasting about thirty minutes—not even an entire class meeting. Why so many of these teacher watchers? Because those who subscribe to top-down management do not trust teachers.”
Why are so many so eager to protect the reputation of Rhee’s reforms?
He writes:
“It’s all part of a fairly well-designed campaign to convince the world that the top-down, test-and-punish approach to fixing schools is just what the doctor ordered. It’s the reform that Democrats for Education Reform and most Republicans favor, despite strong evidence that it does not work.”
Merrow says this tale is like the blind men and the elephant. Each person picks a different part of the elephant and describes it differently.
I would say a better metaphor might be the Emperor Who Had No Clothes, or the futility of putting lipstick on a pig.
Mercedes Schneider was invited to screen a film titled “Passion to Teach,” which was produced and directed by career teachers, Bart Nourse and Sandria Parsons.
She loved it! She provides information about how you can arrange a screening.
She writes:
Passion to Teach is a phenomenal film that poignantly defies the processed-food-product nature of top-down, politically-popular, test-score-centered education reforms.
I have two favorite parts. The first involves an assignment in which students and volunteer adults recreate immigrant arrival at Ellis Island and the subsequent application process for gaining US citizenship.
The second involves the end of the film, an ending that celebrates the teacher-student connection that extends well beyond a student’s time in a beloved teacher’s classroom.
However, the major point of the Parsons-Nourse film is not merely to celebrate the teacher-student relationship. It is to fuel pro-public-school activism.
Diane Ravitch's blog 