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Should parents opt their students out of the 11th grade literacy exam?

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Reposted from the Arkansas Times this morning:

There’s a dirty secret in the hallways of all public high schools in Arkansas this week—the state is giving a bogus test to all eleventh graders on Tuesday and Wednesday: The Arkansas Grade 11 Literacy Exam. That’s right, for parts of the day on Tuesday and Wednesday, your 11th grader is going to spend time under high stakes testing pressure, chained to a chair, unable to so much as use the bathroom for large chunks of time all for no good earthly reason. Subjecting your students—who by the way have been tested more than any students in American history—to another test is asinine and here’s why.

What’s transpired is that the state of Arkansas adopted Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in 2010 and the teachers in the state are teaching to those standards. CCSS has replaced the previous standards, the Arkansas Frameworks, but there are holdover tests from the previous testing regime brought to us by No Child Left Behind (or untested). Rather than take a year off from testing until the new tests aligned with CCSS are introduced, the state is making its juniors first and then grades 3-8 later take batteries of meaningless tests. This is wrong.

I’d love to tell you more about why all of these tests are actually an awful idea, about the adverse physical and emotional reactions that students have to them, the mountains of research demonstrating that our culture’s obsession with testing is netting us next to nothing, and the fact that standardized tests have and are being used to punish schools and districts where economically disadvantaged and racially diverse students live. I could share with you the analysis I completed with a colleague in 2008 about how the Grade 11 Literacy Exam itself was and is actually a bogus test prior to this clear mismatch between standards and assessment. In short, about 60% of the Literacy Exam is made up of questions that are simple while the ACT, a much better test, is all about questions that require critical thinking. In other words, Arkansas’ own test—if we are to believe that teachers were or are teaching to it—could be holding back students who want to go to college.

Nonsense.

If your child’s math teacher made your son study for a math test and then when he arrived, gave the class a test on an obscure detail of US History, wouldn’t you—dear parent– make that math teacher’s email, cell phone, and ears ring like Saturday night in Las Vegas?

Testing math students on their knowledge of history wouldn’t be fair. Giving an old test to students learning in new ways isn’t fair either. And if you agree with me, contact all of the 11th grade parents you know and share these simple steps to opt their daughter or son out of the Grade 11 Literacy Exam. Civil disobedience and challenging clear and unjust wrongdoings needs to be a lesson that the students in Arkansas learn firsthand this Tuesday and Wednesday.

I urge you to take a stand on behalf of your student but more importantly, on behalf of all students in this state and send a clear message to Little Rock and Washington D.C. that their obsession with testing, while wrongheaded, does not override your parental rights. Regardless of how you feel about this or any standardized test, I feel 100% confidence in saying that you, as a parent, should and do have the right to hold your students out of things at school that you deem to be inappropriate or harmful.

Act now by following these five steps:

  1. Talk to your student and ask whether or not this test is something meaningful to them.
  2. Familiarize yourself with resources available at Edusanity (: http://www.edusanity.com/2013/04/26/does-educational-testing-interfere-with-parental-rights/) and the United Opt-Out movement (http://unitedoptout.com)
  3. Discuss this with other parents of students at your local school; there is power in numbers.
  4. Contact the school and tell them that you plan to opt your student out of the exam.
  5. Complete the following form letter and send it, along with your 11th grade student, to school tomorrow.

****

Dear teacher, principal, or other test-administrator, please release my son/daughter from the Grade 11 Literacy Exam being given at __________________ school this week. It is my parental right to protect my child from dangerous, harmful, and senseless behavior and from my perspective, this test is not the best use of my child’s time. The U.S. Supreme Court supports a parent’s right to guide their child’s education as an ‘unwritten liberty’ protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 

Student Name _______________

Parent/Guardian Signature ___________

During the time that other less fortunate students are taking this test, please allow my daughter/son to perform any or all of the below-listed activities, any of which would be more educationally beneficial than sitting through another standardized test, especially this bogus assessment tied to old frameworks.

  • Doodle on a piece of paper for the two days. One never knows, a new pattern or perspective might be gained free of the limits of bubble sheets.
  • Read a book or two or three. Research actually supports this as educationally valuable as opposed to what the state is attempting to do to my son/daughter.
  • Write a story about their friends whose parents didn’t get the message and are suffering through a pointless test. Creative, meaningful writing has been all but lost from the curriculum.
  • Play video games on a phone or personal electronic device. Even that would be more educationally beneficial than taking this test.
  • Help the secretarial or custodial staff complete safe tasks around the office or building.
  • Be released to attend a lower grade and provide free tutoring for students.
  • Catch up on homework.
  • Shoot baskets in the gym.
  • Nap.

 If you attempt to use scare tactics to threaten my child, I’ve instructed him/her to audio record anything and everything you say to be used at a later date. Thank you for  respecting my wishes for the well-being of my child.

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Repost: Does Educational Testing Interfere with Parental Rights?

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Originally appeared at EduSanity on April 26, 2013.

I write today to express my deep concerns that you, parents of Arkansas and America, have unknowingly lost your rights. Specifically, you have lost the right to make a decision about what is best for your child when it comes to standardized tests, a fact I believe requires your immediate attention, ire, and action.

I started thinking about this issue two months ago, immediately in advance of my state’s benchmark examinations mandated by the No Child Left Behind (or untested) act of 2002. Because America is a big believer in the power of tests, students not only have benchmark examinations in the spring but also endure End of Course examinations in Biology, Geometry, and Algebra, the Grade 11 Literacy Exam, and in many cases, individual schools have signed up for outside, for-profit companies to come in and test the students as many as twenty additional days each year. Since we have new standards and new tests on the way, I asked myself why in the world we were still taking tests written to now outdated standards/frameworks. It seems ironic that over-testing and standardization is blamed for the failing of No Child Left Behind so our national response is to replace the old with new standards and tests.

What?

Whether or not you’ve turned on the news in the last couple of years, you’ve probably heard about Common Core Standards. These are different than the previous standards and have setup a most unfortunate situation for your students this year: students in Arkansas and across the country were forced to take standardized tests over old standards while being led towards new ones. In Arkansas, third through eighth grade and eleventh grade students in the state were unfairly and unjustly tied to a desk (not really but sort of) for five straight days on April 8-12, taking tests that absolutely, positively no longer matter: the Arkansas benchmark exams.</p>
<p>Next year, we are told that the brand spanking new and improved tests will be here—I can’t wait.

Our country’s obsession with standardized tests is unhealthy and what I’ll shout from the rooftops is the fact that continuing to test students over something to which they are not being taught makes about as much sense as building boots with spoons. It is nothing short of educational malpractice to continue to test students with a test created under old standards while many/most teachers are teaching to new standards.

Given this deplorable situation, I started wondering what could be done about it and if I recommended parents remove their students from this nonsense, just what would happen to the students, parents, or schools (or me). Being conscientious objectors to things, after all, is the very foundation on which America was built. For example, if you, dear parents, don’t want your student to read a certain novel in eleventh grade English class, you have every right to remove your student from what you perceive as harmful or objectionable. The same goes for other subjects in school and aspects of content in social studies, science, etc. I submit that the battery of tests could hurt your student far more than Holden Caulfield.

If the parents of Arkansas—or any state—all stood up to the big bad testing bully in the room and said, “ENOUGH,” the students involved would learn many good lessons about being American: the importance of standing up to senselessness, the power of protest, and the responsibility as students—with your assistance—to take charge and advocate for their own learning. What did your student gain from sitting and taking that test for five straight days? A sore rear end and an increasing distaste for school?

But can the tests be stopped?

There is an organization that supports this general idea called United Opt Out, a group opposed to all corporate education reforms (corporate education reform—think standardize, drill, test, quantify, repeat). In digging around their site, I’ve found that there is a multi-family complaint issued with the ACLU about testing and opting out of testing. Arkansas and other states seemed to think of people like me—status quo disturbers—when they crafted a policy delineating punishments for those students who opt out of the standardized tests in the state.

From Arkansas:

If you decide to opt out, there are consequences for Benchmarks, End of Course Geometry and Biology and Grade 11 Literacy – student will need to have Academic Improvement Plan and be remediated under the law. (the reason is that the student will have no test to show s/he scored proficient.)  With End of Course Algebra a student must pass the examination in order to get credit for the course (must have passing grade too).  Algebra 1 is REQUIRED to graduate.  So, without it, you can’t graduate.

If remediation (sic) does not occur child can be retained.

As I read this and thought about the ramifications of it, the skin on my face and ears started to burn. Seriously? Parents can and should have the right to pull their students out of this or any kind of testing. Groups in other states are starting to wake up to this chilly reality.
Whether you agree or disagree with the current testing, you probably agree that you—as a parent—should have the ability to remove your student from a harmful situation at school. Let’s say the tests were great, transformational learning experiences for students, parents should still be able to say, “no thank you,” when it comes to their child.

Let’s stop this nonsense and I need you, dear parents of Arkansas and America, to help in this action. Let’s contact state legislators immediately and demand a bill that returns these rights to the parents. And if they don’t follow through (insert joke here about the inability for any legislative body to accomplish something), let’s all simply pull students out of the standardized tests for the 2013-2014 school year. We could save the states a coal car full of money, perhaps money they could put to positive uses in education. Burn the cash in the schoolhouse chimney for all I care but give parents back their rights.

To let the lawmakers of the state know we are serious, here’s a release letter we’ll use next year.

****
March 10, 2014

Dear teacher, principal, or other test-administrator, please release my son/daughter from the ___________________ (standardized test) being given at __________________ school this week. It is my parental right to protect my child from dangerous, harmful, and senseless behavior and from my perspective, this test is not the best use of my child’s time.

Student Name _______________
Parent/Guardian Signature ___________

During the time that other less fortunate students are taking this test, please allow my son/daughter to perform any or all of the below-listed activities, any of which would be more educationally beneficial than sitting through another standardized test.

*Doodle on a piece of paper for the week. One never knows, a new pattern or perspective might be gained free of the limits of bubble sheets.

*Read a book or two or three. Research actually supports this as educationally valuable as opposed to what the state is attempting to do to my son/daughter.

*Write a story about their friends whose parents didn’t get the message and are suffering through a pointless test. Creative, meaningful writing has been all but lost from the curriculum.

*Play video games on a phone or personal electronic device. Even that would be more educationally beneficial than taking this test.

*Help the secretarial or custodial staff complete safe tasks around the office or building.

*Be released to attend a lower grade and provide free tutoring for students.

*Catch up on homework.

*Shoot baskets in the gym.

*Nap. Seriously.

Whatever you, dear parents, decide to do, I encourage you to take back your rights from the policy makers in this state/country. I took the Iowa Basic Skills test twice and the ACT twice in my 12-year educational career. That’s right, four standardized tests in 12 years. Your student may take four standardized tests in three weeks and what are they really learning? Checking in on students a bit more often isn’t a horrible idea, but I honestly think students are learning less today because of the unhealthy focus on tests in this country.

It is time that the parents of Arkansas and states around the country see these issues for what they are and to take back the schools. Testing, testing, and more testing will lead to unhealthy competitiveness, public shaming of school, students, and teachers, and a narrowed curriculum that won’t benefit anyone but those interested in destroying public education. The time to act is now. Contact your legislators. Contact me. I’d love to support you in these efforts. Report your experiences and the experiences of your son or daughter in the comments section attached to this article.

Your parental rights were taken away by failing educational policy and there isn’t a single good reason we can’t take them back.

Standardized Testing

My Child Is Not a #

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I slumped out of school Monday at 5:30, feeling discouraged. The warning was still in my ears, “If a kid is walking down the hall, and I stop and ask him his current MAP scores in reading, language, and math, he better know them, or the teacher will answer why she hasn’t discussed the scores with her students.”

As I read these words recently on a middle school teacher’s blog  I found myself feeling profoundly sad and very angry.  I was sad that this is how far some of the people in charge of our childrens’ education have drifted from caring about kids instead of numbers.  I was angry at the thought that this “educator” was actually THREATENING teachers with consequences if they didn’t follow in his or her same misguided footsteps.  Most importantly, I was ticked at the idea that somebody would treat my child as a number.

You know this popped into your mind when you read this...

You know this popped into your mind when you read this…

Middle school is one of the worst times in anybody’s life. In fact, I tend to immediately distrust anybody who says that they actually liked middle school, because I taught middle school, and I saw the angst and confusion of early adolescence on a daily basis.

So imagine how AWESOME it would be one day to throw up on the bus, have your girlfriend Shauna Wenger break up with you for the 4th time, and lose your new sunglasses, only to have a school administrator stalk up to you and demand to know your numbers.   All of those things happened to me once, except for the last one because in 1987 we hadn’t lost our damn minds yet in pursuit of just one more point.  I wasn’t just a number.

Last week I wrote about DATA WALLS, an unfortunate example of how the number-obsessed mindset has managed to infiltrate the ranks of teachers in some places.  These walls not only tell our children they are numbers, they stick it right in front of their faces so they can be reminded every time they look up from their test preparation worksheet.  They’re all numbers.

Earlier this week I met with a parent who told me that her child was not going to be allowed to enter an advanced math class because he didn’t score well on a timed exam, despite the fact that the school recognizes that he didn’t score well because he is a deliberate worker who checks and rechecks his work to avoid mistakes.  They commended the ability he demonstrates in class, exceptional coursework, and very high scores on classroom tests, but have decided instead to allow this one test score to define him as a math student.  He’s a number.

The other day, this message from a teacher popped up in my inbox:

Since our scores didn’t improve enough, all teachers are going to a meeting for a whole day to discuss what we will do to improve scores… I had one kid with an absurdly high score for a 7th grader, he’s in the 99th percentile, who went down a few points.  Despite the fact that he’s still in the 99th percentile and on a college level in everything as a 7th grader, I have to set a growth plan with him… He struggles socially, and I need to focus on his social emotional growth, not more literary analysis. We’ve had a 2.5 hour staff meeting on reading the data, individual meetings with facilitators about scores, and department meetings about scores. Next step is goal setting and growth plans with kids… I’m scared of what it’s going to look like in the next couple years.

And it is OUR kids who are being affected.  Some of it is fairly harmless, like my son’s friend who was over the other day showing me the house he built using the Minecraft app on his iPad.  As he gave me the tour, we eventually arrived at the “libeary” which he had built complete with bookshelves and books – all organized by Accelerated Reading (AR) level.  He proceeded to tell me about the 2.4’s, 2.5’s, and 2.6’s that he hoped to read soon.  This sounded really familiar as my own son has had his struggles with being defined by an AR score in the past.

These are all anecdotal stories of course, and the Lords of Accountability such as Secretary of Education Bill Gates and his assistant Arne Duncan would tell you that we are the exception and not the rule.

But I don’t think that’s the case.  When stories pop up all over the country of kids pooping their pants and puking because of CCSS tests  and pictures show up on Twitter of kids crying because of test preparation for CCSS, one feels the humanity of education slip further and further from our grasp.

CCSS kid crying

No Caption Necessary

In fact, I bet that every person reading this post has a very similar story they can share about their child or a child they know who is being treated like a number instead of a person.  I encourage you to share one if you have it in the comments section below.

What can we do about it?  For starters, the Network for Public Education (of which EduSanity is a proud member) has recently called for congressional hearings into standardized testing.   Let your congressperson know that this issue matters to you.

Secondly, you can make it clear to your child’s school that you don’t IMG_0983give a damn what their numbers are, because you trust their teachers to evaluate their progress without a standardized test.  Ironically, “educators” who have sold their souls to the Gods of Testing are actually helping to make their jobs obsolete.  Why bother with teachers if all we need are numbers?

We also plan to make this issue a central theme in upcoming EduSanity posts, so please stay tuned.

And as for the “educator” referenced at the beginning of this post, if my child is ever stopped in the hallway and asked what his test score numbers are, I’ve told him to respond, “My name is Jackson Endacott and I’m not a number.”  If he doesn’t like that answer, he can take it up with me.

General Insanity

Coming to A School Near You: DATA WALLS!

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When I was a newly minted teacher in 1998 the public display of our students’ capabilities was limited to posting grade sheets that included complex student ID numbers but no names. The notion of posting the test scores or specific skills of our students was not even a twinkle in the most cold-hearted education reformer’s eye. Then in 2002 after the passage of NCLB the word “accountability” took on new meaning. The frequency of testing increased overall from every three years to every single year while the number of tested subjects actually dropped (politicians don’t care about Social Studies).

This was also the beginning of using data to hold schools and teachers “accountable” for achievement. The test scores for schools were printed in the newspaper.  Schools were given “grades” based on how well their students tested.  These grades pretty much ignored every other facet of educating a child. This oversimplification was insulting but was tolerated.

Next was the comparison of test scores by teacher. I had one particularly myopic assistant principal who would bring our test scores to faculty meetings and rank us by achievement. She completely ignored factors such as # of students with special needs, English language learners, and the unequal distribution of students in advanced classes, but we had already gotten in the habit of ignoring mitigating factors so continuing in that tradition was business as usual.

Now, we have finally progressed to the point where we get to humiliate our 5 year-olds in the same simplistic and public manner that we have been shaming schools and students for over a decade.  Schools around the country have started posting “data walls” in classrooms where children who have not managed to learn the alphabet get to have their names posted for all to see. Those students in first grade who can memorize single digit math facts FINALLY have a public space to separate themselves from the other losers in their class who haven’t mastered that task.

I found this on Pinterest. Clearly, this teacher is proud of how colorful her wall of failure is.

I found this on Pinterest. This teacher must be  proud of how creatively colorful her wall of failure is.

Decades of research that does not exist clearly indicates that the best way to get  kids to achieve is to motivate them through humiliation. It has worked so well in the past for schools and teachers, that it only seems natural to extend the power of public accountability to kids as well.  Education reformers have long held the position that the main reason schools are “failing” is because their failures have not been made public so that we can hold them accountable.  Why shouldn’t that apply to preschoolers as well?

What possible harm could come from moving kids from one side of the data wall to the other after they master a skill until only one child is left on the side of failure?  Surely, the desire to avoid humiliation will be the final piece of the puzzle that these kids needed to get their acts together and ACHIEVE.  I mean, there’s no way that a child who struggles to learn will notice that he or she is usually one of the last to make it on the Data Tree of College and Career Readiness, right?  Take a look at the picture below.  You think that every kid in this class doesn’t know who #2 and #15 are and that they rank at the bottom on both lists?  If you do then you’ve never set foot in a classroom.

#2 and #15 please step forward. You have been deemed FAR BELOW BASIC by the Lords of Accountability.

#2 and #15 please step forward. You have been deemed FAR BELOW BASIC by the Lords of Accountability.

In fact, why stop there? Why don’t we go ahead and print them in the newspaper too so that their neighbors and community can hold them accountable?  Maybe they can wear scarlet “F’s” on their shirts at recess so the other kids can peg dodge balls at them until these little slouches finally buckle down and use a capital letter properly.  The list should probably go to the North Pole as well so Santa knows which kids deserve to have candy in their stockings and which kids obviously need some flash cards.  We can even make up folk songs for John Mayer to sing about the Data Wall Boogieman who comes to steal kids who are on the wrong side of the line between “basic” and “proficient”.

#5 - How can we make sure everybody else knows who they are by name and how they are responding?

#5 – How can we make sure everybody else knows who they are by name and how they are responding?

What really makes me sad about all of this is that some TEACHERS have bought into this idea.  There are Pinterest boards dedicated to making nifty data walls (please don’t go look those up).

These teachers  have forgotten the difference between data “informed” and data “driven”.  Educators have been data informed for decades.  Data is collected in multiple forms, used to guide instruction and then used for remediation or enrichment.  Education reformers would have you believe they were the first to think of using data in the classroom.  As far as I’m concerned they can have credit for that as long as they also take responsibility for this abomination.

What’s it going to take America?  If protecting the hearts and feelings of a little kids isn’t enough to get you to stand up and do something about the direction that education reformers are taking us, then I don’t know what is.

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Bill Gates Wants You to Believe His Lies About CCSS

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 ”Don’t believe the Devil
I don’t believe his book
But the truth is not the same
Without the lies he made up

Don’t believe in excess
Success is to give
Don’t believe in riches
But you should see where I live”

-U2 “God Part II”

The other day one of my colleagues gave me a hard time about referring to Bill Gates as a “shyster”.  Fortunately, only a couple of days after I wrote that post, Mr. Gates has presented me with a perfect opportunity to demonstrate why I believe he deserves the “shyster” label.  Gates recently wrote an op ed piece for USA Today in which he “dispels” three common myths about theMjAxMy0yZjRlNDU4YWFhZmY4Nzll Common Core State Standards.  Here I take a look at Gates’ arguments and explain why they are lies of omission.

Gates Myth #1: Common Core was created without involving parents, teachers or state and local governments.

In fact, the standards were sponsored by organizations made up of governors and school officials. The major teacher unions and 48 states sent teams, including teachers, to participate. The Gates Foundation helped fund this process because we believe that stronger standards will help more students live up to their potential. More than 10,000 members of the general public commented on the standards during drafting. Each of the 45 states that have adopted them used the same process used to adopt previous standards.

What Gates Conveniently Left Out:

While the initiative originated with the National Governors Association, a ridiculous amount of private money used to create and influence the adoption of CCSS, especially funds originating from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation granted millions of dollars to the American Federation of Teachers and the national Parent Teacher Association, two groups that would have been the most likely opponents of national standards. The largest recipients of Gates’ money were the organizations primarily involved in the creation of the CCSS, including Achieve, Inc., The Council of Chief State School Officers, and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices.  Simply put, these monies amount to little more than bribes for buying into the new standards.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration’s education policies for Race to the Top (RTTT) monies and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waivers left states without a REAL choice when it came to adopting CCSS.  Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and the federal government limited eligibility for RTTT awards and NCLB waivers to states that adopted a common set of “college and career ready standards”.  In other words, if states wanted to avoid the penalties of NCLB and keep the federal pipeline of education dollars flowing they had no choice but to adopt the CCSS or create their own “college and career ready” standards.

What Mr. Gates won’t tell you about the process of creating the CCSS is that the two primary writing teams for the standards included only 25 members, a pathetically small number of people for a task of this magnitude. Even worse, membership in the working groups included six test-makers from the College Board, five from test publisher ACT, and four from Achieve Inc., but did not include any classroom teachers.  Teachers were allowed to “provide feedback” on the draft of the standards.  10,000 responses did indeed flow in, and the CCSS authors somehow managed to read and give thorough attention to all of them in the TWO MONTHS between draft and final copy. Right.

The CCSS did not undergo extensive field-testing or validation, and in some cases the CCSS are actually inferior to the existing state standards they replaced.  In fact some state education officials were actually urged to adopt the CCSS before they had even been written.

That’s not exactly “the same process used to adopt previous standards”.

Gates Myth #2: Common Core State Standards means students will have to take even more high-stakes tests.

Common Core won’t necessarily add to the number of annual state tests students take. States will introduce new math and language arts tests based on the standards to replace tests they give now. Most states are taking a cautious approach to implementing the new tests, giving teachers and students time to adapt before scores lead to serious consequences. What’s more, unlike some of today’s tests, the new tests will help teachers and students improve by providing an ongoing diagnosis of whether students are mastering what they need to know for success after graduation.

What Mr. Gates Conveniently Left Out:

The PARCC and Smarter Balance tests do not actually exist yet.  They are being created and tested on kids while states continue to have students take the existing state tests.  Heaven forbid we have a year without a standardized test.

There may not be an increase in the number of federally mandated standardized tests students take, but there is no question that the overall number of tests students take is increasing at a dizzying pace.  In order to prepare students for the tests that don’t exist, schools have been ramping up their test preparation with – you guessed it – more tests.  The same testing companies that benefit from the creation of the CCSS are selling school districts any number of CCSS “pre-tests” designed to give these anxious school officials an idea of how their students will perform on the “test to be created later”.  As if that’s not enough, school districts are also creating an avalanche of new “benchmark exams” that they give across the school district – sometimes on a weekly basis.  If you doubt it, call or email your child’s teacher today and ask them about “benchmark” tests.

As for Mr. Gates’ claim that these new tests will prepare students for what they “need to know for success after graduation” – you have to keep in mind that this magical body of knowledge is only what Gates and his corporate cronies BELIEVE students should be able to know after graduation.  In fact, the CCSS don’t actually place any premium on knowledge at all.  The CCSS are a skill/aptitude set of standards, and it is entirely possible to master tasks under the CCSS without learning a bit of knowledge.  I’ll have an example of what I mean by that next week (stay tuned).  The bottom line is that the CCSS and its tests are only based on the “knowledge students need for the world after graduation” because rich white guys tell you they are.  Of course, they’ve pretty much been running things for a while, so maybe they’re right.

Gates Myth #3: Common Core standards will limit teachers’ creativity and flexibility.

These are standards, just like the ones schools have always had; they are not a curriculum. They are a blueprint of what students need to know, but they have nothing to say about how teachers teach that information. It’s still up to local educators to select the curriculum.

In fact, the standards will give teachers more choices. When every state had its own standards, innovators making new educational software or cutting-edge lesson plans had to make many versions to reach all students. Now, consistent standards will allow more competition and innovation to help teachers do their best work.

What Mr. Gates Conveniently Left Out:

This one is almost laughable.  I won’t bore you with the details of the differences between standards and curriculum, but here Gates is either lying or is just plain ignorant.  In this case, it really could be the latter.  Even if the CCSS were not intended to be a written curriculum for schools that’s exactly what is happening in classrooms all across the country.  It is really simple to understand.  The tests I mentioned earlier will be the measure by which the government hands out “serious consequences” (Bill’s words, not mine) for failure.  Schools and teachers will be judged primarily on the basis of their success or failure on these tests.  The tests are based directly on the Common Core State Standards.

So, the rational individual says to themselves, “Well if that’s the case, and if I want to feed my family next year, then I better make sure that my teaching prepares students to take these tests.”  And that’s exactly what’s happening.  Teachers read the standards and make lesson plans directly from them.  In other places, school districts get together to create lessons from the standards and force every teacher in the district to teach them verbatim.  When these things happen then the national standards are very much a national curriculum.

As to the innovation Mr. Gates is talking about?  Please.  With a proverbial gun at their heads to have high test scores no matter what, schools and teachers aren’t looking for innovation, they are looking for safety.  Nothing is safer in a climate of high stakes accountability than doing EXACTLY what somebody in power tells you.  Lessons are being scripted for teachers all across the country by companies selling packaged CCSS units and some school administrators are actually punishing teachers for deviating from scripted lessons.  This is hardly “innovation”.

As one teacher who took part in our recent research study put it,

“I feel as though I am simply a placeholder.  My individual worth and creativity has no value in this climate of “teach-by-numbers.”

Think about it for a minute.  It makes sense.  If somebody tells you that your job is on the line,  you are going to make sure that you do exactly what you are supposed to do in order to survive.  If you are in competition with your peers (such as being compared to other schools and teachers) then why would you actually want to HELP them?  If anything, this atmosphere stifles innovation.  The irony is that you’d think that Gates would know this since his former empire Microsoft actually abandoned his system of accountability because it inhibited innovation and teamwork.  Let’s not forget that Microsoft under Bill Gates was responsible for the Zune.

Innovation! CCSS style.

Innovation! CCSS style.

Bill Gates may be a lying shyster, or maybe he’s just ignorant.  Either way, he’s hardly qualified to tell you or me anything about teaching and learning.

Current Events, Standardized Testing

Sochi Olympics = CCSS

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A lot has been made this week of the problems surrounding the Olympics in Sochi.  Hotels are incomplete, rooms do not have light bulbs, journalists are bathing without shower curtains, stray dogs roam the city, and athletes have to take care of business in really close quarters. Bf0CHQqCQAAXMFr.jpg_large

Many of these problems are pretty funny from the outside but for the athletes, families, journalists and fans that are dealing with them on a daily basis, they really aren’t funny at all.  If you’ve ever been many miles from home without a place to stay then you know it can be quite unsettling, and its certainly much worse when you are getting ready to go in front of millions to compete and be judged.

But are these problems really all that surprising?  Russia is one of the most corrupt nations in the world and while they spent about $50 billion on preparing for Sochi, it has been reported that $20-30 billion of that went to “embezzlement and kickbacks”.  And the Olympic site selection process reeks of backroom politics, as Sochi is a former Soviet resort town that the Russians hope to revitalize.  What better way to do that then to bring the world for a couple of weeks?

So, it could be argued that the Sochi Olympics are essentially the product of a small group of powerful bureaucrats (the IOC), who created a situation in which a lot of money was going to be made behind the scenes by organizations (Russian Mafia), for the benefit of politicians (Putin) at the expense of those people who actually have to perform (athletes).

Since it’s the Olympics, we laugh, tune in and shake our head at the morons who decided this would be a good idea, the ridiculous lack of planning, the hastily constructed infrastructure, and the collusion between the Russian government and the organizations making money hand over fist.

What’s not so funny is that we have a very similar and distinctly AMERICAN situation happening here at home with the CCSS.  Stay with me here for a minute and I’ll explain.

The CCSS came about when a small group of powerful politicians, bureaucrats and benefactors (the NGA and CCSSO) got together and decided that it would be a good idea to create common national “state” standards.  Working alongside the federal government, this small and powerful group greased the wheels of adoption through bribes to organizations such as AFT and NEA and contributions to politicians.  In Russia they call this corruption, in America we all it “philanthropy”.

And much like Sochi, the CCSS were adopted very quickly, without any field-testing, with a pathetic base of “research” to support them, and really NO IDEA what was going to happen when they were put into practice.

As a result, our American educational system looks a lot like the city of Sochi.  Something was created from nothing at warp speed, no infrastructure existed to actually put the standards (which are really a national curriculum) into place, and the means by which students and teachers were going to be evaluated (new PARCC and SBA national tests) DON’T EVEN EXIST YET.

Here's your new National Curriculum!

Here’s your new National Curriculum!

Meanwhile, the creation of a quasi-national market for educational testing products, curriculum and instructional materials has opened up a $500 Billion dollar “Education Services Sector” that has drawn the attention of “Edupreneurs” who have rushed in to fill the void left by the hasty implementation of CCSS.  These shysters are ready to provide their products and services – for a cost -  to school districts around the country to help them figure out how to actually teach the CCSS and prepare for the test that doesn’t exist.  Take a look around almost any local classroom and you’ll see brand new books, curricula, test-prep materials and other assorted programs that schools have purchased from this Testing Mafia.  Attend a few professional development sessions and you’ll see consultants who are flown in, paid upwards of $10,000 per day, and present the newest “program” or “system” designed to raise test scores.  And the people responsible for creating the standards, now create the materials, are working to create the test, and are making a ton of money in all phases of the process.

Meanwhile, President Obama, our American version of Vladimir Putin minus the gay bashing, stands in front of the nation at the State of the Union and takes credit for this disaster by distracting us with cherry-picked “research” and empty claims of “taking big strides in preparing students with the skills for the new economy” despite the fact that his $5 billion Race to the Top program has been an unmitigated disaster.  President Obama, like President Putin, is all fireworks show and opening ceremony.  Behind the flamboyant distraction is a corrupt and incomplete system of bribery, collusion, and profiteering at the expense of the American taxpayer.

Keep your eyes on the pretty lights please.

Keep your eyes on the pretty lights please.

And who really suffers the most from this situation?  Time will tell what the full effect on our students will be.  Despite the lousy hand they have been dealt, many schools and districts are making the most out of the CCSS, much like the athletes who will still earn gold in Sochi.  These are the schools and teachers the politicians and shysters like Bill Gates and Michelle Rhee will hold up as examples that their racket is “working”.   What they won’t show you are the millions of other students who are suffering because the CCSS has standardized teaching in their classrooms and myopic administrators have kept teachers from meeting individualized needs.  They won’t show you the interminable professional development sessions in which members of the Testing Mafia stand in front of groups of highly educated professionals and present a “system” for raising test scores.  They won’t tell you about the teachers who fear for their jobs because they are going to be evaluated by the test scores of their students – on a test that doesn’t actually exist yet.  They won’t mention the fact that focusing only on test scores means that our kids are pretty much receiving an education in how to take Math and ELA tests at the expense of pretty much everything else.  Perhaps worst of all, they will look at you with a totally straight face when they tell you this is the best way to evaluate our teachers.

So if you find yourself feeling a little superior the next time you are watching the incompetence and corruption of Russia at the Sochi Olympics, try to remember that at least the Russian people are smart enough to recognize the rampant corruption and skullduggery* going on behind the opening ceremony.  When it comes to the Common Core State Standards, most Americans are content to just stare at the fireworks and believe their own hype.

*I have always wanted to use the word “skullduggery” in proper context in my writing.  Mission Accomplished.

Current Events, Teachers and Teaching

Standing Back-to-Back with Teachers

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It was one of those Saturday nights growing up in small town Kansas, USA when I probably should have stayed home. Instead, I traveled ten miles to Sharon (population 189) to a Catholic wedding dance. I was a 9th grader and in way over my head, but I was big for a 9th grader which apparently led to one of the 25 year-old locals, more than a little inebriated, to try to pick a fight with me.

Main Street

We were toe-to-toe, mono y’ mono and if I could go back there now, I would have told me to run out of that whiskey scarred air.

But I didn’t. I stayed and faced the opposition and tried to talk my way out of it. While I was standing there apologizing for something I hadn’t done, I’d sensed a presence behind me. Years earlier, when beating me up in 5th grade was the favored national pastime of my classmates, I remembered a similar presence. It was the sinking feeling right before someone–or two or three someones–grabbed my arms and held me while one of the other someones whaled on me.

Sharon

Flashing forward to the really small town Saturday night, as I walked away from the would-be assailant, my friends gathered round and asked me if I’d seen Kyle Thomas behind me. I had but didn’t know why he was there or why his back was turned to me. At one point his shoulders had bumped into me.

“That meant he had your back, man. Kevin wouldn’t have stood a chance against Kyle.”

Everyone in that entire reception hall, especially Kevin, knew of his chances. Kyle was inarguably the toughest dude in five counties (coincidentally, these fellas are not Kevin and Kyle Fowler, my best friend and his little brother who lived across the street–the Fowler brothers were not harmed in the writing of this post).

Being a teacher and teacher educator naturally connects me with teachers from around the area and beyond. I count myself lucky to hear stories about their classrooms and about their students. I listen to teacher stories, the good ones and the bad ones, and the ones in between.

The concerning stories are the ones that I hear over and over (and over) again, the ones that almost take on a life of their own from their pervasiveness. Two such stories have become ingrained in almost every conversation I’ve had with teachers over the past two or three years.

1) We don’t feel like we can speak out against bogus policies or ideas for fear of retribution. This story circled around so much that a local newspaper reporter picked up on it and called me  to give her names of teachers to contact. I politely declined her request (and not-so-politely wondered what she was thinking). It isn’t that these teachers fear a slap on the wrist or loss of some magical privilege, they literally fear that their jobs or careers will be taken away, frequently pointing to some local cases as examples of that very thing.

2)  We feel like we have less control over what we teach than ever and we don’t like it. In the area where I live and work there is a curriculum mapping phenomenon that, so far as I can tell, came to northwest Arkansas courtesy of some administrators who moved here from another state. The concept of every 8th grade teacher covering the same material is puzzling, and the most egregious example I’ve encountered to date occurred in the requirement that teachers post identical lesson plans on classroom doors across an entire district. Someone would be by to check, they were told.

Screen Shot 2013-11-20 at 11.57.45 AM

These two stories take me back to that wedding dance in Sharon, KS from way-back-when because they both convey the idea of teachers being embroiled in conflict they didn’t provoke. The bully’s sour breathed accusations seem especially pertinent to the educational discourse of 2014, much of which is rank with misinformation and misinformed zealots.

I thought of that situation again when I was recently directed to Forbes.com (admittedly not a place I frequent) to a report from the Center for American Progress (think Fox News of think tanks) about how teachers who responded to a survey felt like they had more autonomy today than they did five years ago, I immediately raised an eyebrow of suspicion. A Huff Post (MSNBC of e-news outlets) piece published about the same time discusses, this time from the perspective of parents, how teachers in New York are being provided a teaching script, an act that would cause many to have thoughts of altercations and most certainly discredits teachers and teaching.

From the article, here’s a brief excerpt from the script:

Minutes 0-10: The teacher reads the first learning target aloud: “I can follow our class norms when I participate in a conversation.” Then, the teacher asks students to provide synonyms of the words follow and participate. Next, the teacher tells a student to read the learning target: “I can define human rights.” For the remainder of the time, students discuss the meaning of the words human and rights in small groups.

“The script continues with this kind of detail for the rest of the year in a sequence of lessons, units, modules, and assessments. Teachers are not allowed to use their own methods to introduce the material, manage the classroom, or share their own wisdom. Students are not encouraged to connect the material to their own lives, events in the world, or things that may interest them. The script tell the teachers and students, at all times, what to say and do. The Common Core ELA curriculum does not treat teachers or students with dignity.”

But if one listens to the CAP, they seem to believe that this kind of control is precisely what is needed in public education, a fairly telling sentiment:

“The bigger problem in public education, however, might not be too little autonomy but rather too much. This makes it hard to create a true profession, which requires having a clear adherence to a common body of knowledge.” (source)

Now let’s be clear, the Common Core State Standards are many things but are not a script for teachers. What New York–and soon the rest of the country–is experiencing is the idea that once the assessment is in place, standards and assessment combine to create a curriculum, one that can be over-simplified by profiteers, one that in New York’s case most definitely strips teachers of autonomy and professionalism.

What all of this really means is that teachers continue to be trashed in our society and one doesn’t have to look to carefully at the picture of education to see that grand–anti-teacher–narrative (kids don’t know anything, teachers are bad, must raise standards) in action. When teachers speak out about an issue at school, there is this backdrop of educational fisticuffs flying in the periphery, effectively undermining anything said.  When I think about those teachers both afraid to speak out and the ones who have,  I think immediately of the story of Kyle Thomas and how it felt to know that he had my back those years ago. I was invincible but if he hadn’t been there, I’m sure that my words would have been rendered pointless, my face left rearranged.

I assert that some teachers may feel like I felt in that almost fight–nerves, adrenaline, fear–when thinking about our profession or simply carrying out their work. Fortunately, we have colleagues in the support of public education across the country who stand back-to-back with us too. From Diane Ravitch to the Public Education Shakedown to the Bad Ass Teacher Association to Chicago to the MAP-defeating teachers in Seattle from last year, we must stand together. Let’s find inspiration from writers like Alfie Kohn and Paul Thomas and share those readings with parents and colleagues alike. The proverbial Kyle Thomas’ can be in the classroom next door or across the country.

I hope my fist-fighting days are over and don’t confuse the metaphor here as one that advocates for physical intimidation or violence, but it does feel very much like fight or flight time in American public education.

I lament the fact that many teachers feel they cannot use their own names to ask serious and level-headed questions of school or district leaders or the education status quo. A democracy–most certainly a public school–should encourage that type of activity, encourage free and open dialogue without the fear of retribution if for no other reason than to offer a model of America for students.

Colleagues who agree with and support these questions should feel that it wouldn’t endanger their jobs to raise questions too. Unfortunately, in many schools across the country, the current culture and climate is one that values and respects compliance versus conversation, quiet versus questioning, and discipline versus dialogue.

Make no mistake about it, we are in a fight for the rights of teachers to teach and students to learn. Together, with a definite presence behind us, we can back down the foul-mouthed educational bullies we face today.

 

 

 

 

Uncategorized

Should High Schools Stop Giving Final Examinations?

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That very question recently stopped me in the hallway of a local high school, posed by the school’s head principal, Dr. XYZ. I’ve been stopped by principals in hallways for the better part of 30 years, and before I’ve always had a quick answer or response, usually something along the lines of ‘I’m on my way to the bathroom,’ before this latest inquisition. This just wasn’t a topic I had considered.

My primary experience with final examinations was as a high school student and a high school teacher. In both cases, finals were part of the unquestioned landscape of the school situation and were proffered, most often, as a way of preparing students for the rigors of the finals in college. I remember water balloon fights were the norm after and in between finals at Medicine Lodge High School, at least until T.J. Rausch’s windshield shattered.

But those were different days. School is unlike my experience in the 90’s or 00’s when I was a high school student and then high school teacher. I’m not sure looking to the past does much but provide a reference point. The number of standardized tests have increased at such a rate that yesterday is hardly recognizable in today’s terms. For example, I took the Iowa Basic Skills tests two or three times and took the ACT twice in the 84-96 era of American education. Students today take more tests designed by someone-other-than-their-teachers in first grade than I took in 12 years of school. Read the last sentence again for emphasis.

The chief defense or reason given for final examinations in high school is that they prepare students for college, prepare them to be in a stressful testing-like situation (hey, kids, do you need more practice at being stressed-out?). Back in the days of yore, I see that preparation argument being more appropriate than it is today though perhaps still false in its motives, a little like what John Mayer alludes to in his song “No Such Thing.”

I just found out there’s no such thing as the real world/

Just a lie you got to rise above.

Versus further pontification on the merit or value of finals, I’m opening EduSanity to our readers to contribute to a discussion, one I’ll share with Dr. XYZ. Here are some questions to get us started—feel free to use the comment box or email me your contributions (cgoering@uark.edu).

Should high schools stop giving final examinations?

To what extent do colleges still give finals and what do those finals look like?

What finals do you remember in a positive light or struggle to try to forget?

Do students today still need more experiences in high pressure testing situations?

What would be lost if high schools stopped giving final examinations?

Discuss.

Current Events, General Insanity, Standardized Testing, Teachers and Teaching

A Day in the Life of a Public School Advocate

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The life of a university professor is not a particularly difficult one. After 13 years of college and enough student loans to purchase a small suburban home I’ve earned the right to make my own schedule, teach courses in my field of expertise, and work on projects that interest me. EduSanity is one of those projects. The writing I do here is a result of my role as an advocate for public education. In addition to this blog, I write editorial pieces, conduct scholarly research on the effects of CCSS implementation, give talks, and teach a class on Reclaiming the Conversation on Education. My professional life is pretty great when compared with the vast majority of people in the world.

However, the life of a public school advocate can take a toll on you in a unique way. I am constantly bombarded with negativity towards public schools, public school teachers, and public school students every single day of my life. Constantly, you ask?  Pretty much.  I work to confront this negativity using the outlets at my disposal, but in the grand scheme of things I feel quite impotent compared with those who have millions of dollars (Bill Gates) or unprecedented government power (Arne Duncan).

Impotent (definition)
1. lacking power or ability.
2. utterly unable (to do something).
3. without force or effectiveness.

Yesterday was a particularly impotent day. I describe the events of yesterday here, not to complain, but to give the readers of EduSanity a window into the constant negativity that surrounds public educators who fight the corporate take over of our public schools.  Nothing that follows is exaggerated, and it did indeed occur in my world yesterday.

Wednesday 10/24/13 – Fayetteville, Arkansas

6:00 – Wake up and head to the gym. While working out, obsess over a “social studies” test your oldest son brought home the other day that is really a literacy test with one token social studies question thrown in at the end. Plan future EduSanity post in your head about the death of social studies and citizenship due to NCLB and CCSS.

7:30 – 8:00   Check email and find link to Education Week article about the rise in demand for testing products, services and companies due to CCSS. Wonder why Americans seem content to sit back and watch corporations make hundreds of millions of dollars testing the bejeezus out of their children despite the lack of evidence that testing does anything to improve education. Find another email from colleague and fellow public school advocate Julian Heilig with a link to a blog post describing how Congress slipped a provision into the recent debt ceiling compromise to make sure Teach For America is still legally able to place unqualified teachers in schools while turning enormous profits and calling it “civil rights”. Consider writing another blog post about the newest Republican strategy of taking elected officials with brown skin (Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal) and having them push corporate reforms (charter schools, vouchers), calling them “civil rights battles” despite the fact that research shows these reforms actually lead to more segregation, not less. Give up that idea because you’ve got other work to do.

8:00 – 9:00 Head over to one of your local coffee shop “offices” to work on a couple of social studies education article manuscripts that actually count towards tenure and promotion. Put off writing blog post you planned during morning workout while thinking about how accountability narrows the scope of what people do, whether it’s teachers giving up social studies to focus on tested subjects or professors giving up public advocacy to focus on traditional scholarship. Note the irony and hypocrisy in your choice.

9:00 – 9:10 Exchange emails with a friend and former colleague who is a P.E. teacher in the district you used to teach in. Shake your head as he tells you that his district now requires him to spend a significant amount of his physical education class time READING. Wonder what happened to the childhood obesity epidemic we hear so much about. Chuckle to yourself as you think about what would happen if body fat composition tests were a part of NCLB and teachers would actually be held accountable for how healthy their kids were. Hope Obama and Duncan haven’t had this idea. Stop laughing at the possibility that they have.

10:00 – 10:15 Run into another friend at the coffee shop whose spouse teaches social studies in a nearby district. Find out more about how that district arbitrarily decided to take middle school students out of social studies classes in order to fill sections of a technology course that was funded by a grant. Tamp down righteous indignation that parents weren’t even consulted before their children were completely removed from a core subject area. Turn attention back to social studies education manuscripts and wonder if you are wasting your career by conducting scholarly research on how students think and learn about History when many schools clearly don’t give a damn if they learn it at all.

10:16 – 10:20 Distract yourself from negative thoughts by playing some Candy Crush on your phone. Remain stuck on level 275 for another day and curse those little candies for contributing to your lousy morning. Vow to never play again. Go back on that vow 10 minutes later.

11:30 – 12:00 Drive over to your sons’ school for the yearly “Dad’s Lunch” (a.k.a. reason to get you to book fair). Eat with your boys and a couple of kids from the 2nd grade football team you coach. Best part of your day.

12:00 – 12:30 Help your sons pick out some new books at school book fair. Pause as a parent makes a beeline for you and professes her hate for CCSS because the third grade district assessments aligned with the future PARCC assessment for CCSS are not developmentally appropriate. Listen to her description of how our schools have essentially boiled the teaching of literacy down to a series of assessments that require 8 year olds to read non-fiction about various topics (sea turtles, sharks, tornados… etc) and write two paragraph essays comparing what they learned. Discuss how even fiction has been reduced to reading books and writing two paragraph essays comparing the books’ settings (or other text feature). Wonder how teachers can possibly inspire children to read when they are required by their common lesson plans to turn a work of fiction into a routine deconstruction of an arbitrary text feature rather than a literary experience. Send this parent a link to a column you recently wrote with your EduSanity colleague for English Journal that compares the CCSS to a list of corporate specifications for products brought to market. Ask her if she’s surprised that the CCSS are not developmentally appropriate since they were written by fewer than 60 people, all of which were testing company employees, government officials or educational entrepreneurs. They wouldn’t know developmental appropriateness if it punched them in the eye.

Brains! And tests!

Brains! And tests!

12:30 – 2:00 Continue work on aforementioned social studies education manuscripts. Think about becoming a lounge singer.

2:00 – 3:00 Take an hour off and justify it by telling yourself you have class tonight.  Watch the latest episode of Walking Dead on your DVR. Wonder if it will take an apocalyptic disaster to return local control to schools. Sigh as you realize that the only survivors of a nuclear war or zombie apocalypse would be cockroaches and Arne Duncan. Console yourself by using the Walking Dead app on your phone to turn Duncan and Michelle Rhee into zombies.

3:00 – 3:30 Try to watch a recent episode of Homeland that’s also on your DVR. Turn show off quickly when Carrie Mathison’s freak out over a giant CIA conspiracy sounds a little too much like your own freak outs over education reform.

3:30 – 4:00 Meet with local elementary school teacher who tells you that lessons and assessments in her district are planned by a small cabal of instructional facilitators at the district office who send out units to the teachers that they are not allowed to deviate from regardless of whether or not they are designed to meet the specific needs of their students. Her district is one of those who confuses common standards with common teaching. Hear about the fiction and poetry units she can no longer teach because CCSS requires her to spend time teaching 9 year-olds to write professional emails instead. Wonder if the proclamation of CCSS mastermind David Coleman that nobody gives a shit about how you feel in the real world  also includes 4th grade.

3:31 – 3:35 Receive an email while walking out of meeting with elementary school teacher from the Chronicle of Higher Education informing you that Obama’s nominee for U.S. Undersecretary of Education is a Bill Gates education reform flunky with no background in education prior to buying his way into running an educational-venture fund. That’s right, the next Undersecretary of Education is a guy who makes a fortune by taking your tax money to turn a profit while undermining public education. Wonder if Obama actually understands how his nominations and policies are classist, racist and based on the failed notion that accountability and privatization will cure all of our nation’s educational problems. Curse yourself again for voting for that sellout twice.

3:35 – 4:45  Re-read chapters 15-20 of Diane Ravitch’s new book Reign of Error for the graduate course you teach this semester. Wish that every American would read Dr. Ravitch’s thoughtful dissection of Teach for America, Charter Schools, Vouchers and the fraud known as Michelle Rhee.

Creative thinking is for kids in private or charter schools

Creative thinking is for kids in private or charter schools

5:00 – 5:30 Dinner with the family. Hear about oldest son’s latest compare and contrast essay. Wonder if life will eventually cease to exist beyond the analysis level of Bloom’s taxonomy.

6:00 – 9:00 Teach graduate course on qualitative research methods. Make the unwise decision at the end of class to get dragged into tangential argument with student/local administrator about the need for NCLB and standardized tests in order to hold teachers “accountable” for closing the achievement gap. Try to make case that we don’t need the federal government to hold teachers accountable for something that should be done at the local school district or building level. Do really poor job making argument because you are tired of your role as public school advocate for the day.

9:15 – Get home to find stiff drink waiting for you on kitchen counter with supportive wife/bartender ready to let you rant about your day. Rant goes something like this

11:15 -  Go to bed and prepare for similar experiences tomorrow.

At the end of the day, my professional experiences are better than most, but as somebody who has dedicated his life and career to public school education, it is tough to face this sort of negativity day after day.  There are times that I’ve thought seriously about giving up this struggle by retreating into the ivory tower of academia and pretending as though the corporate takeover of public schools isn’t happening.  Many of my colleagues in K-12 schools and universities across the country are doing exactly that. However, there are too many teachers and students out there who need advocates like me on their side, even though the odds are stacked in favor of big money and big government.  Hopefully someday it will make a difference.

 

Uncategorized

Arne Duncan – Minister of Education Information

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Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently held a press briefing in which he went after “armchair pundits” such as myself who are critical of his efforts to standardize education across the United States.  Here’s a partial excerpt:

Also inhabiting this bubble are some arm chair pundits who insist our efforts to improve public education are somehow doomed to fail, either because they believe the government is incapable of meaningfully improving education or because they think education reform can’t possibly work since the real problem with schools is that so many children are born poor. In blogs, in books, in tweets, some pundits even say our schools are performing just fine and that fundamental change isn’t needed or that we have to address poverty first before schools can improve student achievement.  Too many inhabitants of this alternative universe are so supremely confident in their perspective that they have simply stopped listening to people with a different viewpoint. 

When I read this for the first time, I actually laughed out loud because Arne reminds me of Baghdad Bob:

Let’s start by thinking about who these “armchair pundits” really are.  When you are finished reading this post, I encourage you to hit Google up for a search of education blogs related to CCSS and standardized testing.  You will essentially find two different kinds of blogs.  The first will be written by right wing Tea Party types who believe that CCSS is an attempt by Obama and Duncan to indoctrinate our children into socialism.  These claims are ridiculous and are based more on hatred for all things liberal rather than logic or facts.  The second type of blog you will find will be more like this one.  EduSanity was started by two life-long public educators in the hope that we can help restore SANITY to the conversation about education in this country.  There are many other blogs out there just like this one.

By calling me and others like me, “armchair pundits”, Arne is essentially telling you not to worry about what anybody but the government and a select group of corporate sponsored organizations (such as the NGA or CCSSO) say about education.  Minister Duncan is using a well-worn rhetorical trick to bundle critics like those at Public School Shakedown with the misinformed and politically motivated basement bloggers so you will believe that all opposition to his destructive efforts at educational reform comes from extremists and amateurs.

I can’t speak personally for all of my blogger brethren who oppose corporate and federal government controlled educational reform, but I am neither amateur or extremist.  First, I voted for President Obama – twice unfortunately.  I vote for both Democrats and Republicans depending on the election and the candidates, and have little patience for extremism on either side of the aisle.

But politics aren’t really what is important here – credentials are.  So let’s take another moment to think about whom Duncan is calling an “armchair pundit”.  I am a lifelong public educator who has been working in schools in one capacity or another since 1998.  I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education as well as a MS and Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction.  I am certified to teach K-12 in three states.  My colleague, Dr. Goering, is National Board Certified.  He is certified to teach wherever he pleases.  I taught in a public middle school before becoming a teacher educator at the university level.  I visit schools, conduct professional development and train future teachers.  I conduct and publish education research in academic journals. I currently co-teach a graduate level course with my EduSanity colleague called “Reclaiming the Conversation on Education” in which we read widely on issues related to educational reform.  Many of the other “armchair” pundits are people exactly like us – current teachers, professors, parents… etc.

Here’s what Arne has to say about people like us:

They are clearly not focusing on children and students. They are focusing, instead, on false debates. Fortunately, many people in the real world, outside the beltway and blogosphere, have tuned out this debate. They are too busy actually getting real work done. They’re focusing on students, whether they’re three years old, 13, or 33. All across America, states and districts are moving forward with courageous reforms. States are raising standards and expectations for students, and are piloting new and better assessments to show what students know and can do.

Arne Reading to Students

Yes, there will be a test after this.

How ridiculously hypocritical is it for Arne Duncan to refer to people in the  “real world”?  The only time he actually ventures into a classroom is to hold up a book and take advantage of a photo opportunity with students.  Hell, he probably doesn’t even bother to read the book to them.  In the “real world” Minister Duncan doesn’t even have a background in education.  Duncan became CEO of the Chicago Public Schools because he’s from Chicago and played basketball with Barack Obama back in the day.  He hasn’t taught a single public school child – rich or poor – in his life. It takes some serious gumption to stand on his soapbox filled with no experience and tell others like me what the “real world” of education is like.

Duncan then takes hypocrisy to all new heights when he accuses us of focusing on “false debates”, because as Education Secretary he doesn’t actually engage ANYBODY in a substantive debate.  He appears on friendly television shows and fields softball questions from fawning reporters.   He answers questions on Twitter for an hour each week – picking only those questions that allow him to spew his rhetorical propaganda while he ignores questions that require substance.  He stands behind the podium and laughs like Baghdad Bob at the silliness of those who oppose him and the power of the federal government. He refuses to actually engage in any sort of substantive debate with anybody who is actually qualified to question his reforms.  This I can promise you:  Put Arne Duncan on camera with me and a moderator and this armchair pundit would make him look like Sarah Palin looking for Russia out her window.  It will never happen.

Arne the Education Secretary is playing the role of Arne the politician.  If you look at his quotes above with a critical rhetorical eye you Arne the Iraqi Memewill see that Arne is not trying to bring American citizens and American educators together, he is trying to divide us.  Many of the so-called “armchair pundits” he is referring to are practicing classroom teachers.  These are the “courageous” educators who risk their jobs to stand up to the classist, racist and divisive education policies that Duncan and his corporate cronies have foisted on American school children.  These “armchair pundits” are busy filling backpacks with bags of cereal and granola bars on Friday afternoons because their students may not get a meal over the weekend.  These “armchair pundits” know that poverty is not an excuse – it is a reason.  These “armchair pundits” know that a standardized corporate curriculum and a new onslaught of standardized tests don’t mean a damn thing when the children taking the test are sleeping in a car at night.  These are not excuses.  Poverty is a SOCIETAL problem, not a strictly educational one.  Duncan would have you believe that poor performing schools are the reason children are poor.  This is a flat out lie.

Arne also wants you to believe that schools and districts are “courageously” moving forward with reforms as though they actually have a choice.  They have no choice.  They must move forward with Duncan’s reforms or they will face the wrath of the federal government under NCLB. Duncan’s tactics are standard rhetorical trickery.  He wants to divide and conquer by convincing the American people that states and schools are on his reform bandwagon while those who oppose his empty reforms are no better than educational insurgents – causing trouble for those who are toeing the company line.  Duncan’s reforms have created a culture of fear in the upper levels of school districts and schools that would make George Orwell blush.  I know this because I spend my time moving around the real world of education, while Arne moves between corporate boardrooms and government buildings.  I see the effects of his reforms first hand, while he pretends all is well.

Our current circumstances are a direct consequence of giving a politician unprecedented power.  My hope is that the American people are perceptive enough to see Arne Duncan for the amateur armchair educator he is.

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