Common Core

Time to Fight

~ dmaxmj ~ Leave a comment

Why should educators, as professionals, be expected to willingly participate in the destruction of society-in the end making their jobs as educators even more difficult? The demands of so-called “education reform” that ignore childhood-development norms lead to practices that further that destruction.

To begin with, it’s not good pedagogy, and regardless of how much “grit and rigor” and “raised bars” rhetoric you infuse it with, it does more harm than good. No matter how many new-fangled games and technological gadgets are inserted into the daily school routine, there is no making up for the losses we suffer when our strategies move away from the foundational practices that were once the norm, and we need to vigorously fight back as a profession to insist on the respect we deserve for the value we have always brought and still bring.

A little preachy maybe, but to give a simple example of where we can be led or pushed astray:

Have you caught yourself wondering why student handwriting looks so terrible these days?

Maybe it’s because finger-paintin’ and clay-squeezin’ are now things of a distant kindergarten past. Students spend less time developing the hand strength, muscle-memory and fine-motor coordination that once led to good, legible handwriting. But Common Core, and “college and career-ready” demands mean that efforts in instruction and accountability target skills that demonstrate proficiency on standardized tests rather than some antiquated concept of handwriting and its importance.

Thinking gets delivered digitally these days anyways, and figuring that the loss of hand strength and dexterity would make it hard to hold a book and turn pages-let alone grip a pencil: we need to inject more software, screens and keyboards into the classroom  to redesign that ancient paradigm of kids writing with pencils and reading actual books and whatnot.

See how technology can fill the gaps where humanity once was?

But (you might ask) if the strength, dexterity and coordination to grip a pencil and make it write with one hand isn’t there, how can we realistically expect our little learners being whipped over our raised bars to use both hands, find and hold that home row, and execute the equivalent of tickling the QWERTY ivories to express their thoughts in writing?

Don’t sweat it. We can start formal keyboarding instruction in the primary years. Where to fit it into the school day, or how we can  expect classroom teachers being pounded into HEDI scale slots (who may or may not be typists themselves) to eke out time in the day to teach typing are questions we needn’t bother with. There are plenty of software programs available that can lead students through typing lessons. No teacher required-just give them a laptop, a pair of headphones, and let the hunting and pecking begin!

I’m being a bit snarky here, but my point is that what should be a primarily human endeavor (i.e., helping our youngest learners mature and grow into capable young citizens) is being dehumanized by that thing called “reform” and all the gadgetry (in hardware, software, approaches and assessments) that has ensued.  The demand for data to feed the reform monster has led to participation in and compliance with programs and practices that will efficiently generate that data and this pushes us further from the societal goals that build and strengthen an informed citizenry, and towards serving economic interests that care little about the realities faced in the schools and classrooms of our neediest communities.

We are being driven to place artificial, statistical value on human beings, and it’s no wonder that the consequences include us now having to spend more and more time on social/emotional/psychological issues- to instituting anti-bullying and social media awareness programs, teaching character education in school because outside of school there’s less character to be found. We are scrambling to find ways to insert more humanity wherever and whenever we can.

 I have written in the past about what education reform has looked like, what it apparently means to those who have imposed it upon the children of others and those who serve them, and what it really should mean-what it needs to mean, if we are going to reclaim our educational souls and reverse this societal decay. The demand that more and more data be produced, that this data be statistically normed so that it can take the place of individual children and what we know about their needs, and that we call this “value added” exemplifies where we have been misled.  

I would argue that the more time we spend pouring in this way over spreadsheets and assessment data, the more technology and gadgets we put between us and young learners, the less time we spend looking at and connecting with the actual children right there in front of us. That’s where dedicated teachers demonstrate real value and true values,  when and where value is needed most.

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Holding Schools Accountable

~ dmaxmj ~ Leave a comment

While sorting through some old, old stuff, I came across a hard copy of this. I think it predated flash drives, I’m not really sure. Thank god I have a beautiful young typist that will ask for little more than a burger and maybe a few bucks. About 16 years ago, I think it was, and yet it could be today. 

 

National Standards:

Holding Schools Accountable

by

Daniel McConnell, Jr.

State University of New York

Cortland, 2002

 

Introduction

            While on the surface educational standards appear to be merely a logical move to provide cohesive instruction, the forces behind their origin and the pairing of standards with a call for “accountability” reveal other motives. Historically, the United States has taken great efforts to achieve and maintain a dominant world presence, much through advances in military technology (which are closely linked to the math and science fields). Most notably since the launch of Sputnik in 1957, when the former USSR beat the United States into space, policy makers have demanded that schools prepare students to be an active part in the US- led future. When “A Nation At Risk” was published in 1983, warning of pending failure in the competitive world market, the cry for school reform was renewed with a focus on curriculum standards, and accountability for schools not demonstrating student achievement of those standards. While doing this, policy makers ignore their own accountability in helping to nurture capable students and productive future citizens.

Background

            “Our Nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world.” (A Nation At Risk, 1983)

After a brief statement of educational philosophy, A Nation At Risk begins with this ominous warning. It does not warn against a pending invasion by a foreign power, or a nuclear attack, or even an anonymous biological threat. The threat, it seems, is economic: based on the ability of the US to compete and profit (to a greater degree than other nations of the world) in the global market. But the insinuation, if it could even be considered as subtle as that, is that the threat is just as dire: “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.” (p.1). The tone of A Nation demonstrates a shift in perspective regarding the nature of America’s “world leader” role, and the responsibilities of schools to support that role. Once in the business of promoting the rights of citizens by educating those citizens to exercise them in a responsible manner, schools have gradually found their role shifting from responsibility to protect the nation from tyranny to supporting the near-tyrannical forces of a corporate driven system. This system places monetary profit and domination of the world market high on the priority list, while subjugating the needs and desires of present and future citizens (i.e. the students themselves). With current US policy funded, advised and driven largely by leaders in the corporate world, legislation tends to favor the already wealthy and powerful minority at the cost of the less wealthy majority of Americans. This legislation includes the educational standards, and the standards-based reform movement that began largely as a result of A Nation At Risk. While staying competitive in the fields of math and science (which are cornerstones of the tech market and essential in maintaining military dominance) is important for the economic health of the nation, current efforts to impose standards and high-stakes standardized tests should be closely evaluated to determine whose needs they truly serve.

The History of Reform: Sputnik and the Science Scare

“Unless future generations appreciate the role of science in modern society and understand the conditions under which science thrives”, he (Dr. Elmer Hutchisson, Director of the American Institute of Physics) said, “our way of life is, I am certain, doomed to rapid extinction.” (New York Times, Oct. 8, 1957)

America’s public school system has, since its inception, been a source of hope and a focus of criticism. It has been given the responsibility for shaping society at times, blamed for not doing so (or doing so in a misguided fashion) at other times. One time from our not so distant history that many believed revealed a weakness in our education system was in 1957, the year Russia launched the first space vehicle, Sputnik. At a time when the nations of the world were just beginning to consider the possibilities of space exploration, and most believed that the US would lead the way with its Vanguard program, the Soviets caught the world off guard when it launched a satellite weighing eight times that of the one the US intended to launch. The possibility that the Soviets had outmatched the United States in its ability to not only launch a satellite, but to launch a significantly heavier one gave rise to two fears: 1) the capitalist beacon of hope that was the US was technologically inferior to the other world power- the communist threat that was the USSR, and 2) If the Soviets could launch a satellite into space, they could launch a nuclear missile that could reach the United States.

Dr. Elmer Hutchisson, director of the American Institute of Physics at the time Sputnik was launched, gave the statement at the beginning of this section. In addition to the accusations from others that the Eisenhower administration was under-funding satellite research, Dr. Hutchisson added a warning about the science education students were receiving

 ..the United States must distinguish carefully between ‘highly accumulative’             scientific knowledge that can be taught by rigorous discipline and the namby-                pamby kind of learning’ that seeks to protect children against inhibition of their              individuality or their laziness“

According to James Rutherford, former director of Project 2061, the American Association for Advancement of Science’s program for revamping K-12 science education, the efforts to improve science curriculum and training throughout the educational system began shortly after Sputnik, but then halted after the United States put the first man on the moon (Harvard Educational Letter: Research Online, Sept/Oct, 1998).

Not surprisingly, this article states, results from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS, 1997) showed that US students scored lower than half of the students in other developed countries by the eighth grade, and “dead last” by the final year of secondary school. Despite the call for creation of standards across subject areas by the first President Bush in 1989, America’s schools are still having difficulty meeting the high expectations implicit in the new standardized assessments.

The Confounds Regarding Success in Reaching the Standards

“The average grade for all the standards he [L. Lerner] appraised is C-minus…In fact, we can only be confident from this analysis that six of our fifty states have first-rate science standards.” (The Fordham Foundation, 1998)

While students are apparently not performing as well as those calling for standards and accountability suggest they should, other influences confounding those goals exist. Once source blocking student success is the standards themselves. Vague and/or poorly written for many states, teachers with standards that are not clear are left unsure of what to teach and how best to teach it. Another source of poor student performance is the “baggage” that students bring to school with them. An issue highly stressed in the current reform movement is the “achievement gap” between the high and low socioeconomic groups.

Schools have been called upon to reduce this gap, with the hope that it can be eliminated, but research shows what teachers know: students that come from stable, nurturing and supporting homes are more likely to succeed academically (Pianta, 2002). Instead of pushing policy that would enable lower class families to lead more enriched lives, devoting more time to bestowing the school readiness skills that are associated with future success for students, policy makers choose to make schools the repair shops- charged with fixing the damage done to the family unit by corporate-centered policy.

That the standards themselves need fixing is an ongoing issue. With individual states being responsible for their own, variance in style and quality of those standards is to be expected, and so then is variance in what is taught and how students perform. The Fordham Foundation is one organization involved in the education reform movement, and in 1998 they published a report on the progress states were making in their effort to write science standards. An excerpt from that report reads like a scolding:

            “Among the thirty-six jurisdictions with elementary/secondary science standards fit  for appraisal, he found six that deserve “A” grades and seven that earn “B’s”. Good grades for more than a third of the states! Yet that sounds good mostly because our expectations in such matters have fallen so low. Here’s another way to look at the  results: Dr. Lerner conferred nine failing grades and seven “D’s”: three more than won honors. Seven states earned “C’s.” (New York was among the “C’s”)”

This repost goes through each of the thirty-six states evaluated and thoroughly analyzes the quality and substance of the standards the state has developed for science, as well as the examples of properly achieving them. Without arguing the foundation’s qualifications to do so, one could suggest that the nation’s leaders have given little support for this monumental task, merely directives. If, after all, a standardized result were the expectation, then a more centralized and standard approach would be the best from the beginning. Rather than having fifty different sets of standards and exemplars with the hopes of reaching a similar achievement goal, one set for all to follow would be a more sensible approach.

In addition to standards that provide little help in reaching lofty new goals, administration officials have lumped in a healthy scoop of criticism- as well as a call for “accountability”. Unfortunately, they overlook their own accountability in helping students reach their true potential, and fail to notice that very early in A Nation At Risk, the authors admit as much:

            “That we have compromised this commitment is, upon reflecting, hardly surprising, given the multitude of often conflicting demands we have placed on our nation’s schools and  colleges. They are routinely called on to provide solutions to personal, social, and political problems that the home and other institutions either will not or cannot resolve. We must understand that these demands on our schools and colleges often exact an educational cost as well as a financial one.” (p.6)

Rather  than overhaul policy that has served the desires of the wealthy few (campaign finance, corporate reform, foreign trade initiatives) at the expense of working families, the finger has been pointed in another direction. More recently, the attack has turned ugly: Following in his father’s school reform footsteps, President George W. Bush has lent his straightforward approach to the reform movement. Consider his words as he addresses the audience at the signing of the Education Bill in Hamilton, Ohio (Jan. 8, 2002):

            “If we’ve learned anything over the last generations, money alone doesn’t make a good  school. It certainly helps. But as John mentioned, we’ve spent billions of dollars with lousy results. So now it’s time to spend billions of dollars and get good results.“

The message from The White House seems clear (if not unsettling): a lot of money has been wasted, and now it’s time to all the public school system to the carpet and make it do its job. But what does the president mean by “lousy results” and “billions of dollars”? The “No Child Left Behind Act” fact sheet released by The White House on the day of its signing by the President conveniently arranges the reform position in a problem/solution format. In regards to money spent and the results that have gone unrealized, it says:

 -Since the original Elementary and Early Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was                    signed into law in 1965, the federal government has spent more than $130 billion               to improve public schools.

 -Unfortunately, this investment in education has not reduced the achievement                     gap between the well-off and lower-income students or between minority and                     non-minority students (p.2).

The evidence is neatly laid out, but goes unexamined. Although $130 billion sounds like a lot of money, if you do the math and divide it across the years it was spent, it comes to a mere pittance when matched against other national budgeting priorities. Thirty-seven years passed while that $130 billion was spent, which raised two interesting questions: 1) If The White House wants to insist that this amount of money spent on the public school system should have been sufficient to close the achievement gap between the well-off and lower-income students, then why have they failed to consider some other source for failure in closing this gap other than schools- mainly, some function of the inequitable class system which creates “well-off” and “lower-income” students? And 2) With military spending far outpacing any developed country in the world many times greater than the money allocated to public schools (not to mention the hundreds of billions being allocated into new “homeland security” measures) how can the White House justify this indignant attitude of having spent “billions of dollars with lousy results”? If the future of our country was to truly be invested in and protected, it would be reflected in a national budget that better funded schools, and made it possible for struggling families to spend more time at home building the skills and experiences that foster school success.

The Issue Of Accountability

“You know, a huge percentage of children in poverty can’t read at grade level. That’s not right in America.” (George W. Bush)

According to New York University’s Edward Wolff, and expert on the wealth gap, a wealth tax starting at one-twentieth of one percent on net worths of $1 million, and rising to one percent on the super rich, would yield about $50 billion per year. Imagine earmarking this for, say, the education of poor kids.

As a teacher, I can accept that I am responsible for helping my students achieve the educational standards set for my students. It is, after all, my job. I resent, though, the treatment of my profession as if it were some magical machine that can turn the star-bellied sneeches and the ones with no stars upon thars (apologies to Dr. Seuss) into standardized products with equal potential and opportunity. Children come to my classroom from vastly different homes and those differences manifest themselves in all sorts of measures of behavior and achievement. It is a difficult thing to do, and has historically come with its own drawbacks, but I think the best way is to treat children as individuals- helping children meet their own goals to the best of their abilities. True, a sound set of standards that reinforce necessary basic skills is needed. But we have to avoid turning students into numbers within a statistical framework, and expect them to become “standardized”. Human beings, with their wide variety in desires, abilities and learning styles- not to mention home environments, just don’t work that way. Children are coming to school every morning from all sorts of family situations and it is reflected in what they are ready to do. At the end of the day, they go back to that home again. The connections are logical, even without hard evidence. More stable homes generally display stability across economic resources and family configuration. Families with two parents making a decent living wage have more time to be involved and supportive, have some history with and/or appreciation for education, and pass these values on to their children. They often are less stressed by the demands felt by lower income families who may not have the time to spend fostering the “readiness” skills (mostly communication, listening, and language skills). which are valuable to students (and the teachers who have them in their classes). Despite this, teachers must accept the responsibility for helping all children meet tough academic goals, with the expectations and demands continually rising.

Conclusion

While teachers, on the one hand, must accept accountability for their results, there is only avoidance of accountability from those imposing standards upon schools and students. District report cards outlining in detail how schools perform on high-stakes standardized tests appear in huge spreads in local newspapers. How our elected officials are voting on specific legislation and specifically whose agenda is being forwarded on Capitol Hill is information that requires extensive searching and investigation to uncover. Having clearly acknowledged the achievement gap between classes, our elected officials have chosen to avoid the issue of inequity in wealth and resources (including a parents’ ability to spend quality time with their children) between the classes. Instead, “leaders” have chosen to subject the public schools to accountability for making up for this inequity. But if a standardized product is expected, then the materials that go into making that product must be standardized, as well.

The demand for standardization needs to be turned around and slid back across the table to the policy makers of America. If they will spend the time and resources to close the gap between the classes, they may see the achievement gap start to close, as well.

References

Harvard Educational Letter: Research Online (Sept/Oct, 1998). From Sputnik to TIMSS: Reforms in Science Education Make Headway Despite Setbacks. More time is needed for widespread classroom changes, By Naomi Freundlich. (http://www.edletter.org/past/issues/1998-so/sputnik.shtml)

Lawrence S. Lerner (March, 1998) An appraisal of science standards in 36 states. Fordham Report; Vol 2, 4

National Commission on Excellence in Education (1983). A nation at risk: The imperatives for educational reform. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Education

Pianta, Robert (2002). School readiness: A focus on children, families, communities and schools. Educational Research Service, Arlington, VA.

Schmeck, Harlold M. (October, 1957). Nation is warned to stress science. Times looks back: Sputnik. The New York Times learning network. (http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/specials/sputnik/sput-15.html)

The White House (January 8, 2002). Remarks by the president at education bill signing. Office of the Press Secretary (Boston, Massachusetts). Hamilton High School Hamilton, OH.

The White House (April 4, 2002). Fact sheet: No child left behind. (On-line). (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020108.html)

“Soft Skills” Part I : Teachers Go Far Above and Beyond Gates

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To reformers, the well-being of children is just not the point.

But it never really was. Early on, the financial crisis was used as an opportunity for a political maneuver, an education-reform launch; an opportunity to pull a bait-and-switch, except this one was a Gates and switch. In 2009, Bill Gates, billionaire and default oracle on anything he throws his money at, spoke to the National Conference of State Legislatures and first described the crisis and sets up the problem:

“These are not ordinary times. We’re in a severe economic downturn—and you, as state legislators, may have a more complete picture of the impact of this recession than anyone else in the country. You are forced to balance your budgets, even as the recession increases your expenditures and cuts your revenues.”

On some level, he clearly got what was going on financially-for policymakers anyway. But he avoided the institutionalized avarice of the financial sector and the policies serving to protect it, regardless of the damage to working-class families being done, and instead he skips to describing that damage:

“Your constituents are losing their jobs, their savings, and their homes—and everywhere you go, people are asking you to make it better. This is a painful time.”

Now about here is where a person with a soul and a backbone would say something like:

“This nation is infected with some very powerful, influential and wealthy maggots eager to feed on what little is left of the very people, your constituents, who made this nation great. This has to stop and the way we stop it is with some social, economic and political reforms that will truly make America great again. Whoa- can someone write that down? I may want to put that on a bright red hat or something!”

But Gates didn’t say any of that. Well, maybe he had something to do with the hat, but he definitely didn’t point the finger or give the finger in the direction it was needed. Instead, this is where the switch followed the bait. Like the manufactured “crisis” in education that the Chicken Littles of the post Sputnik year lamented, and the diversion that the alarmist Reagan-era Nation at Risk was going for, Gates decided to make public education the enemy:

“We’ve been in an economic crisis for a year or so. But we’ve been in an education crisis for decades. As a country, our performance at every level—primary and secondary school achievement, high school graduation, college entry, college completion—is dropping against the rest of the world.”

In less than five years after saying this he would be predicting that many jobs would be lost to technology and automation. Today you can see that happening as cashiers disappear only to be replaced by computers that help you do your checking and bagging yourself; touchscreens take your order and your credit card payment at fast food restaurants, so no teenagers saving up for their first cars needed; ATM’s to take and deliver your money from and to your bank-so no teller needed! Rest afraid that it will continue to happen,  and that as time goes by this dehumanization of the labor force and increasing intrusion of technology into our daily existence will have impacts on our students.

But Gates avoided, in his mission to educate the nation, the consistently high correlation between economic stability within communities and families (likely to be eroded with an eroding jobs market) associated with student level of  academic achievement and life outcomes. At the same time, he jumped fully on board with pushing more “products” into schools and a data-driven high expectations, test-and-punish, “common core” mentality that insists all students should perform the way the top 1/3 or so have historically performed. Why would Gates choose to implicate and scapegoat public education, or suggest that more private market philosophy imposed on the public commons was the way to go?

While I can read minds (I do it in classrooms every day- every good teacher does), you don’t really need to in this case. Gates is an open book. Let’s boomerang back to that NCSL speech he gave about how to do a proper rich white-guy gentrification of public education, eviscerate the teaching profession and bend and shape poor children of color to his specifications:

When the tests are aligned to the common standards, the curriculum will line up as well—and that will unleash powerful market forces in the service of better teaching. For the first time, there will be a large base of customers eager to buy products that can help every kid learn and every teacher get better. Imagine having the people who create electrifying video games applying their intelligence to online tools that pull kids in and make algebra fun.

Ohhhhh…so there’s a market! There’s products to be developed and sold and money to be made for some people to come up with things to make other people’s kids do. If you didn’t get the tingles of excitement just reading that, imagine how it has felt being a victim of what that money has bought for the years between then and now. Or a parent watching what was being done to your child and his/her school in the name of “reform”

“But misuse of assessments by politicians isn’t about my kids, really. It’s about the ever-increasing number of those left behind in the economic competition model of public education. More and more kids are coming to school tired, hungry, emotionally and economically insecure, with school and academics low on their list of priorities. Children can’t eat tests and tests can’t hug children.” (Me, April 2015)

Or better yet, imagine if you were a corporation just waiting to crank out some of those “products that can help every kid learn”.

All the PR and promotion you can stand, with little reflection

Don’t get me wrong, I am not anti-Gates. I am just anti wealth-backed elitist narrow-minded BS “philanthropy”. Oh-and the ability of a lot of money to pay politicians to force poor people into indentured servitude and  intelligent people to chase that gravy train and continually defend negative PR campaigns and undeservedly hyped reputations and resumes. I almost forgot that last part. Thank God for notes-huh?

“She gleefully assumes the mantle of arch-reformer from a long line of disruptors like Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, Arne Duncan, John King, Wendy Kopp, John Deasy, the first generation of charter school founders…” 

That quote was from an article written by Peter Cunningham. In it he describes how Eva Moskowitz descended from the clouds carried on the backs of a dozen winged (say that “wing-ed” like its two syllables) cherubs playing golden harps. Spoiler alert: a heavenly golden aura magically frames her benevolent and at the same time grimly determined and unafraid visage, she sheds a tear of mercy, and then makes a self-sacrificial vow to open the doors of a new school of miracles to all who would come.

Okay, so I’m kidding.

It is a good read, though, primarily as a specimen of the craft of shameless promotion, and for the inclusion of the names in that “long line of destructors”. They are tremendous. Everybody knows it. They do school better than anyone, believe me. Believe me. I’m being wise, so let me dial it back and say A) disruptors not “destructors” (Freudian slip) and B) Peter is one of the more reasonable people in the “reform camp” I’ve communicated with. I just don’t care for the deflections of Moskowitz herself or the lack of honesty in the promotion of her school or others that operate like it.

You see, data, tests, formulas and educator evaluations based on all that are sucking the life, purpose and honesty out education and the debates regarding reform and what “choice” should really mean. Schools that engineer a student body through filtering enrollment and unreasonably strict disciplinary practices in order to manufacture stats should be a “choice” available, but can’t be represented with chin-held-high as “better than” truly public, open-doors schools because of their manufactured better stats. If you really want to, and you manage to get your child into a school like that, then kudos to you. But this is the type of education system, one that ignores what the neediest really need and who can best to define and provide it, that is supported by those disconnected and elite destructors…I mean distractors…no-wait disruptors.

Be patient, I’ll get it eventually. 

But I don’t want to stretch this out too long. I am going to save some for my next installment where I get to the “soft skills” that employers demand, teachers provide, and reformers so desperately want you to ignore.

 

 

 

 

When will that better conversation begin?

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Granted, I cannot be allowed to tell anyone what parents of color trapped in under-served, under-resourced urban neighborhoods and schools should choose for their children. My country-white ass can’t cash that check if I try to write it because my account comes up pretty empty in that area.

Also, as I have said time and time again: I am one-hundred-percent behind parent choice.That means parents have the power, and are the first line of defense, and offense. I respect  and expect that power.

But that also means those shouting along with me about parents and their rights can’t suddenly shrivel and flip-flop and/or wail when parents who know better resist “reform” based on high-stakes tests; or when someone points out the downsides to test obsession. The pressure felt in a system that reduces human value to numbers is not something made up. Suicides really have happened because of that pressure. It isn’t “fake news”, and if anyone is disrespecting and demeaning the loss families and friends have felt it’s you if  to try and pull a “switcheroo” and pretend that protecting children from that type of emotional and intellectual assault is an attack on standards, or expectations, or is promoting “lousy education”, or is “dodging accountability”…?

That’s you protecting the pressure cooker, not children.

If you cannot even honestly address a point of view that doesn’t align with your agenda, then you don’t even have a high horse to be scolded off of. You’re not having any “better conversation”, you’re just stomping through that smelly stuff your horse left behind. I am more than willing to admit that there are bad teachers out there. I have known some, and am even willing to admit that I am not as good as I want to be, because my goal is to get better every day. I am more than willing to admit my union comes up short, at times, in effectively making education better for children-but you probably wouldn’t like my version of making my union better. It would me a little less political coffee klatsch and a little more teamsters.

But ask “Do charter schools benefit from their selective enrollment practices?”, or point out that test obsession can come with consequences?

Wow…is that the sound of the sky falling, or just some people crying as if it is?

In the same way that I am not going to tell other parents what to choose and how, or even try to pretend to know their situations and motivations, as a parent and someone who chose teaching as a career, (not a stepping-stone box to check on a resume aimed at business, consultancy and/or politics)  I also am not going to:

  • let entrepreneurs or “seed investors” or non-educators define what people need to know about education and/or teaching.
  • let a school board member with an ax to grind and eager to spout their view that teachers and unions are responsible for a “prison pipeline” go unchallenged.
  • let public relations and communications wrap an evasive horseshit sandwich in a pretty wrapper without pulling some of that paper away to deal with what’s really inside.

So please: I come ready to openly address the downsides of education as is, and if you come willing to address what’s really inside that smelly thing all wrapped up pretty that you’ve been hired to sell? Well then we’ll be ready for that better conversation.

A Coleman Blank? UPDATE

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I am doing some research and am reading David Coleman’s 2011 talk to NYSED regarding the common core standards.
This is the nysed.gov link to the full transcript I am using. When I get to the part where he says
But it also involved quite wonderfully several other teachers of every stripe from every organizational background who are involved in developing these standards and also of course the NEA and other groups. But if there’s one voice that is loud and clear here, it is the voice of teachers. And let me tell you what we learned as we listened to those voices. (p.4-5)
 
It is followed by a large blank area before going on to the next section, with no mention of what David learned as he listened to actual educators. Did he not learn anything, or was it like the “listening tours” that happen from time to time-where people were talking but it didn’t really impact the process?
If he did learn something, I would like to know what it was. If there is a better link, or more information, please share it with me.

—

Thank you,
Dan McConnell
I contacted NYSED, and heard back pretty quickly Took me some time but it’s been busy. Daughter graduated, parties, family visits and whatnot. Still confusing, though. Read and see what I mean. 
Me (June 18th):
I am doing some research and am reading David Coleman’s 2011 talk regarding the common core standards.
This is the nysed.gov link to the full transcript I am using
When I get to the part where he says
But it also involved quite wonderfully several other teachers of every stripe from every organizational background who are involved in developing these standards and also of 5 course the NEA and other groups. But if there’s one voice that is loud and clear here, it is the voice of teachers. And let me tell you what we learned as we listened to those voices. (p.4-5)
 
It is followed by a large blank area before going on to the next section, with no mention of what David learned as he listened to actual educators. Did he not learn anything, or was it like the “listening tours” that happen from time to time-where people were talking but it didn’t really impact the process?
If he did learn something, I would like to know what it was. If there is a better link, or more information, please share it with me.
NYSED (June 19th):

Hi Dan, this transcript is complete, although the way it is formatted is a little misleading. If you listen to the video (available athttp://usny.nysed.gov/rttt/resources/bringing-the-common-core-to-life.html) , at 13:19 he ends with “…what we learned as we listened to those voices.” The next thing he says starts with the text on page 5. However, whoever created the transcripts added the extra space and added the section headings which makes it seem like there was a break in what was spoken even though there wasn’t. So the text of the transcript is complete and it is not missing anything in this section.

 

If you have any other questions about this, please let me know.

 

Thanks,

Ron

 

I haven’t listened to the video, not this part anyway. I’ve seen the “world doesn’t give a shit” part a dozen times, but not this part. Ron’s word is good enough for now, because why would he lie and then give me the link? My issue, then, is the total disconnect from A) Saying “…let me tell you what we learned from listening to those voices.” to then going on some more about your own ideas and understandings. Very little teacher voice or input seems to come out of what Coleman expresses. In going back to the transcript to see if giving anyone else any credit for informing his thinking comes out…I’m still coming up empty.