Showing posts with label Jennifer Jennings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jennifer Jennings. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Carol Burris, Kathy Cashin, (Holy Cow) Jennifer Jennings on District 15 Panel, Dec. 9: TALKING ABOUT TESTING

I agree with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on just about nothing. I think Race to the Top is an evidence-free mess. I think the idea of a test worth teaching to is a willful misunderstanding of the science of testing. And I can’t agree with Duncan’s insistence that the cheating scandals that have garnered widespread attention in recent months are a parable about “rotten” school cultures and not a reflection on the incentives that we’ve forced upon teachers. But as I sat on the floor of a packed ballroom in San Francisco at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association last week, I was embarrassed—no, humiliated—that some of my colleagues booed the secretary of education when he approached the microphone for his keynote speech.....
You had the grace, the guts, and the patience not to reciprocate [EdNotesWTF].  If there is one lesson from this conference, Secretary Duncan, you showed America’s educational researchers that we can have a different debate—one in which we rely on ideas and open disagreement and reason, and not on schoolyard bravado.... Jennifer Jennings, Edweek, May 6, 2013, http://shar.es/lzWnS.
Jennifer for about 2 years was an active participant in that battle [against ed deform] and her own blog was under assault by the deformers as throwing bricks no matter how artistically she threw them.... Shades of how Randi and Unity Caucus chastised those who booed Bill Gates at the AFT2010 convention.....Ed Notes
 
This should be an interesting panel with Carol Burris, our current top level ed deform fighter, leading the way. And Jennifer Jennings, who I write more about below.

TALKING ABOUT TESTING
A Panel Discussion
hosted by
District 15 Community Education Council & PS 10

December 9, 2015
7-9 pm

Address:  Pre-K 280 for PS 10,
500 – 19th St. at 10th Ave.(formerly the Bishop Ford School)
Brooklyn

Panelists:
Carol Burris, Exec. Dir. Network for Public Education Foundation
Kathleen Cashin**, NY State Regent
Erika Gunderson, Asst. Principal, PS 172
Jennifer Jennings, Asst. Prof. of Sociology, NYU
Anita Skop, Superintendent of Schools, District 15


Panel presentations will be followed by a moderated discussion and Q & A.
BRING YOUR QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS

Note how they now moderate discussions by having people fill out index cards.

How interesting that Jennifer Jennings, our former leading battler against deform back in 2008, turns up at this event. Formerly known as Eduwonkette,  Jennifer was the masked avenger hero for many people in battling ed deform when she blogged anonymously as Eduwonkette in 2008.

eduwonkette Unmasked - NYC - Blogs - Education Week

Education Week
Aug 24, 2008 - You were a tad off.eduwonkette is written by Jennifer Jennings, a final year doctoral student in Sociology at Columbia University. I study many .

How Jennifer Jennings Tried to Cut School-Reform ... - NYC

New York Magazine
Aug 24, 2008 - Just a few days after she handed in her dissertation proposal, Jennifer Jennings, a soft-spoken Columbia sociology grad student who's wicked ...
After being introduced to Jennifer by Leonie Haimson at a rally over a closing of a large high school back in 2007, Jennifer asked me to meet with her to discuss the issues related to closing large schools and she came to some ICE events and we stayed in touch. When she decided to blog she consulted with me over strategies and a few days later she took off and the entire edu-nation became enthralled.

Only a small band of people knew who she was and we kept her secret until she revealed who she was and ended her blog and sort of disappeared. 

Actually, there was a curious Jennifer Jennings sighting when she emerged in 2013 to rebuke those who booed Arne Duncan at the AERA conference when Jennifer publicly apologized to Arne Duncan. 

The AERA conference is the leading yearly event of the chief academic educational research organization and many ed researchers know full well the destructive force unleashed on the American school system by the likes of Arne Duncan. Jennifer says, let's debate not throw bricks. But when one side has hedge fund ballistic missiles and the other has only bricks, to chastise them is so genteel in a world where war has been declared by one side on the other. And active engagement in fighting back on all fronts has actually managed to compensate for the massive tilt of the playing field. Jennifer for about 2 years was an active participant in that battle and her own blog was under assault by the deformers as throwing bricks no matter how artistically she threw them.

Jennifer is academic who clearly is not feeling the direct effects of ed deform on the entire educational community. Nice to Arne (and maybe by extension Eva Moskowitz) is not an option.

Shades of how Randi and Unity Caucus chastised those who booed Bill Gates at the AFT2010 convention.

I wrote back to back blogs on this event in May 2013:
EdNotesOnline: Jennifer Jennings (formerly Eduwonkette) apologizes to Secretary Duncan over the booing at AERA

May 7, 2013 - Jennifer Jennings is one of my favorite people of all time even though I disagree with almost ... Posted by Norm @ ed notes online at 11:38 PM.

Ed Notes Online: When Davids Boo Goliaths Do They Lack

ednotesonline.blogspot.com/.../when-davids-boo-goliaths-do-they-lack.h...
May 8, 2013 - As promised, I'm following up on yesterday's post "Jennifer Jennings (formerly Eduwonkette) apologizes to Secretary Duncan over the booing ...
Ravitch commented here:  Why Did Educators Boo Duncan? Jennings Apologizes.

Here are links to some of the research Jennifer did, with the wonderful Aaron Pallas as her advisor. 

Norm's Notes: Do new small schools in NYC enroll more ...

normsnotes2.blogspot.com/.../do-new-small-schools-in-nyc-enroll-more....
In a new report, NYU professor Jennifer Jennings and Teachers College professor Aaron Pallas ... Posted by ed notes online at Saturday, October 30, 2010 ...

New York City's Small Schools Experiment: Who's Benefiting?

normsnotes2.blogspot.com/.../new-york-citys-small-schools-experiment....
A research presentation by Jennifer Jennings and Aaron Pallas of Columbia University will be ... Posted by ed notes online at Monday, September 21, 2009 ...

Eduwonkette: The Turnaround at Evander Childs: A NYC ...

eduwonkette2.blogspot.com/.../turnaround-at-evander-childs-nyc-small....
Oct 9, 2007 - ed notes online said... How did the NY Times reporter miss this? It is the NY Times' agenda to support BloomKlein so "missing" this is not an ... 
**I don't count former Region 5 supt Cashin as a fighter against deform just yet since when she was in the system as District and Region supt she did so much to support it -- and there are still currently some awful  legacy principals in District 27 from her tenure. But I do believe that former deformers can be redeemed and reformed.)

*In 2008 I attended the one in NYC as Jennifer's stringer while she sat anonymously in the back of the room in front of a panel that included Andrew Rotherham, one of the original chief apologists for ed deform who used his blog Eduwonk as a weapon. When Jennifer went live with her blog, purposely named to chide Rotherham, he was charmed and publicized Eduwonkette widely the very first day - but later turned sour and was one of the chief pursuers trying to flush out her real identity.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Updated: Jennifer Jennings (formerly Eduwonkette) apologizes to Secretary Duncan over the booing at AERA

I have heard this before; critiques from the people in power or their apologists saying “why can’t you be more civilized.”  In my mind, it is similar to a well-equipped army that invades your country, takes over your institutions, and then argues with the natives that their resistance is not “civilized” enough. ... Leonie Haimson
Jennifer Jennings is one of my favorite people of all time even though I disagree with almost every word in Jennifer's apology to Duncan which today surprised the world of long-term Real Reform activists battling ed deform. One commentator used the term, "bizarre."

Given Jennifer's former superstar status when she blogged anonymously as Eduwonkette from Sept. 2007 to Aug. 2008 and through her final post in Jan. 2009 under her own name, this was somewhat of a bombshell.

I wouldn't classify this, as some may have, as the reverse of the Ravitch desertion of the ed deform camp but Jennifer's absence from the public discourse over the past 4 years has made people forget just how important she was in debunking so much ed deform in a very short time, to such an extent that a nationwide witch hunt was on to find out her identity, with some of Joel Klein's minions jumping in to attack her on a regular basis.

I haven't seen or heard from Jennifer in years but though I disagree with her here I still consider her a friend. We shared a whole bunch of times together. She attended some ICE meetings and tested out her blog on me before going public and I was one of the very few who knew her identity. We were together when we heard Joel Klein got the Broad Award (she punched me in the arm in frustration). The only AERA conference I attended was here in NY because of her. I posted about Jennifer in Jan. 2009 when she "came" out and I was the first blogger to post about her right after her first blog post came out. She went viral soon after.

But I will talk more about why this story is so interesting and include other reactions in a follow-up and include some thoughts.

If you want to catch up on Eduwonkette's work, here are the links to her initial blog and the one after she was picked up by Edweek.
http://eduwonkette2.blogspot.com/
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/eduwonkette/2009/01/


Ravitch comments here:  Why Did Educators Boo Duncan? Jennings Apologizes.

Before I post any more, read what Jennifer had to say at Edweek.


Published Online: May 6, 2013
Commentary

An Apology to Secretary Duncan

By Jennifer Jennings 

Premium article access courtesy of Edweek.org.

I agree with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on just about nothing. I think Race to the Top is an evidence-free mess. I think the idea of a test worth teaching to is a willful misunderstanding of the science of testing. And I can’t agree with Duncan’s insistence that the cheating scandals that have garnered widespread attention in recent months are a parable about “rotten” school cultures and not a reflection on the incentives that we’ve forced upon teachers. 

But as I sat on the floor of a packed ballroom in San Francisco at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association last week, I was embarrassed—no, humiliated—that some of my colleagues booed the secretary of education when he approached the microphone for his keynote speech. It is one thing to disagree with some of the Obama administration’s policies, to bring countervailing data to the table, and to engage in reasoned—and, one would hope, enlightened—conversation. It is another thing entirely to abdicate our most sacred responsibility as researchers—a commitment to ideas, to data, to truth, to real debate—at the altar of one-upmanship. 

“I was embarrassed—no, humiliated—when some of my colleagues booed the secretary of education when he approached the microphone for his keynote speech.”

What saddens me is that the educational policy debate has become an overwhelming chorus of boos, of shout-downs, and of bitter personal insults, rather than a real debate about ideas and data and first principles. Unfortunately, this mirrors the direction that most American political debates have leaned in recent years. It is toxic. It is unnecessary. And it is not befitting of a community of researchers who stand in front of students on most days of the week and call ourselves educators. 

I have no senior standing, official office, or public mandate with which to offer this apology, but nonetheless: I’m sorry. I’m sorry that a faceless minority of the educational research community lacked the courage to meet you with ideas rather than with the heckling that is so easy to deploy when you are sitting among hundreds of others, none of whom will ever be called personally to account for their actions. 

You had the grace, the guts, and the patience not to reciprocate.
If there is one lesson from this conference, Secretary Duncan, you showed America’s educational researchers that we can have a different debate—one in which we rely on ideas and open disagreement and reason, and not on schoolyard bravado.

Jennifer Jennings is an assistant professor of sociology at New York University. She is the former author of Education Week's eduwonkette blog.