Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Study Finds Mayoral Control a Bust, Someone Tell the UFT



Contact:
Katrina Bulkley, (973) 655-5189, bulkleyk@mail.montclair.edu
Dan Quinn, (517) 203-2940, dquinn@greatlakescenter.org

Mayor-Led Schools Report Problematic, Academic Review Finds
EAST LANSING, Mich. (Apr. 23, 2013) – Mayoral governance – where a city's mayor replaces an elected school board – is in use in several major American cities, including New York City and Chicago. A recent report from the Center for American Progress claims that "mayoral-led" districts improve school and student performance. A new review questions whether mayoral control is appropriately credited with the claimed improvements.

The report, Mayoral Governance and Student Achievement: How Mayor-Led Districts are Improving School and Student Performance, was authored by Kenneth K. Wong and Francis X. Shen.  Wong and Shen studied fiscal and student achievement data in an effort expand the discussion around mayoral control of schools.

Katrina Bulkley, Professor of Education Leadership at Montclair State University, reviewed the report for the Think Twice think tank review project. The review was produced by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC), with funding from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

Professor Bulkley's review finds that the fiscal analysis of mayoral-led cities is "problematic due to inappropriate comparisons and a lack of reliable and valid evidence." Specifically, mayoral-led districts are claimed to have more resources as a result of the governance change but no evidence is provided that shows this is true. Regarding student achievement claims, she found the report highlights selected positive findings in a few districts, but does not address mayor-led cities where such gains were not found nor cities in the country that saw strong gains without mayoral control.

The report's use of research literature is also called into question, as no peer-reviewed journals appear in the endnotes and there is a lack of citations to research that examines finances or student achievement.

Furthermore, the review finds that the report "surprisingly" includes Philadelphia and Baltimore in the sections on student achievement but not the section on finances.  This is surprising because these two cities are cited in the report as "mixed" models – with a combination of state and mayoral control. "Without their inclusion, only three out of the nine analyzed districts would have shown improvement [in student achievement] by the report's own definitions."

On a positive note, Bulkley states, "This report offers useful information about the context for shifts to mayoral control in different cities and the challenges that may arise in such governance changes."
However, Bulkley concludes that the limitations presented in the review prevent the report from being used for serious policy decisions.

Find Katrina Bulkley's review on the Great Lakes Center website:
http://www.greatlakescenter.org

Find Mayoral Governance and Student Achievement: How Mayor-Led Districts are Improving School and Student Performance on the web:
http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/MayoralControl-6.pdf

Think Twice, a project of the National Education Policy Center, provides the public, policymakers and the press timely, academically sound reviews of selected publications. The project is made possible by the support of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

The review is also available on the NEPC website:
http://nepc.colorado.edu

===========
The mission of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice is to support and disseminate high quality research and reviews of research for the purpose of informing education policy and to develop research-based resources for use by those who advocate for education reform.
Visit the Great Lakes Center Web Site at: http://www.greatlakescenter.org.

Chicago Students Boycotting Need Your Solidarity WEDNESDAY, April 24

Dear Students United for Public Education (SUPE) Supporter,

Chicago Students are boycotting their standardized tests & school closings TOMORROW, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24th, 2013. One of our SUPE High School leaders, Israel Munoz, is also helping lead this action with another organization: Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools (CSOSOS)



Action Against Standardized Testing and School Closings
As you all know, this Wednesday is the second day of the PSAE Test. This second standardized test is used to evaluate our school, our teachers, our principle. Aside from this, the test scores are also used to determine how much funding our school gets. 

These tests put a number on our school, and on us. Standardized testing is NOT right! No student is standard!

Instead, on that day, we will have a city-wide action. Students from high schools all across the city will board up buses and head to CPS Headquarters in downtown to have a press conference with the media to speak out against high stakes testing.

After this, we will head on the buses to Benjamin Banneker Elementary School and form a human chain around the school to symbolize student protection of our schools and communities. This is one of the 54 schools that Mayor Wrong Emanuel and Barbara Byrd Bennett want to close down! We will go there to show that the students of Chicago will stand up for younger students that are being held subject to injustice.

We all want better schools! This is EXTREMELY important. Let your voice be heard! Show the world that the youth will fight for what is right! Empower yourselves! This is OUR education, this is OUR fight!

For all the students who are taking the test, I encourage you guys to not take it. You cannot get in trouble as there is a state mandated retake test that you can take on May 8. Of course, all of you should take the retake, but refusing to take the first one sends a clear message that these tests are unfair.

For all other students: Freshmen, Sophomores, and Seniors. Join us! We will have a bus waiting for us at by Kelly Park. This is off of school property, and therefore we cannot get in trouble. We will have lawyers there as well to assure that no students there are subject to injustices.

If you ever wanted to make a change and help our communities, NOW IS THE TIME! I hope to see you all there. Bring signs and bring a friend! SHARE THIS POST!

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has." —Margaret Mead

Solidarity!


Please show them your support and share their Facebook Event & Page. These are powerful students, and they will be heard!


In Struggle,

Students United for Public Education
 
 

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Red Alert from Fred Smith: How You Can Help Undermine State Ed Dept Duplicity For Possible Class Action Suit

Folks and fellow truth-seekers,
 
An idea, hopefully worth considering:
 
Please get the word out to as many parents and schools as possible to find out what form of the math tests their children are taking tomorrow and Thursday.  At the same time, find out what school the children attend and what grade level they are on.  There is nothing illegal in gathering these three facts.
 
It would also help to ask principals and teachers the same questions.  Why?
 
There are four forms of the test - A, B, C and D.  
 
Each form has a set of items being field tested.
Multiple-choice items are embedded in Book 1 (tomorrow) and Book 2 (Thursday).
 
Each school has been shipped only one form to administer. 
Students indicate the form on their answer sheets.
Eventually SED will have to reveal where the embedded items occurred on each form.
 
By knowing which form children took and schools gave, we will learn where the embedded items were placed. Depending on the placement (early in the test book as opposed to late) the performance of children taking a particular form may be disadvantaged.
 
That is, although the embedded items don't count in scoring the exams, their placement could have a confounding and deleterious effect on the items that are scored (the operational items). In turn, the high-stakes decisions that are reached based on the items that count may handicap students, teachers and schools because of the particular form of the test their schools were given.
 
That seems to be a likely outcome and could be the basis of a class action if groups are penalized because they had the misfortune of being assigned one form instead of another. 
 
I don't think this is trivial.  Each year the New York State exams are taken by approximately 200,000 students per grade.  Thus, each of the forms will be administered to about 50,000 children.  If one form adversely impacts performance on the exam compared to the other forms, then the determinations that are reached based upon "real" test results obtained on that form will be skewed against the children, teachers and schools involved. 
 
If you think this idea has merit, please get the word out.  And we will need to figure out how to compile the Form/School/Grade Level information we are seeking.  We cannot let SED hold all the cards.
 
PS: If you can also ask parents, teachers and principals to recollect the same information about last week's ELA tests, that would double our knowledge base and build our challenge to the misuses of the exams. Knowledge of the Form is most important.  Although the ELA tests were given last week, the make-up tests concluded yesterday and today, so we should be able to pick up accurate information on the ELA.
 
Thank you, as always, for keeping up the struggle.
 
Fred

Fair Test: Testing Resistance & Reform News: April 18-23, 2013

Every week seems to set a new record for coverage of the rapidly expanding national movement against high-stakes testing overkill. -- Fair Test
Except at Gotham Schools.

Read the idiot Gotham Schools piece supporting Pearson tests by Jennifer Borgioli who actually cites George W. Bush to support testing and makes other nonsensical points or as one activist states:  it is one of the worst edited pieces I have ever seen.  It is illogically constructed, badly written and the arguments are so weak as to be laughable, and read NYC Educator's piece critiquing it (Gotham Schools Defends High-Stakes Testing)

Let's show some muscle.  Change the Stakes RALLY Friday, 4PM: CLEANING UP the MESS of HIGH STAKES TESTING

Come out to Tweed on Friday from 4-5:30 to show how you feel about the child/teacher abusing use of highs takes tests.

Check this list from Fair Test's Bob Schaeffer:
Every week seems to set a new record for coverage of the rapidly expanding national movement against high-stakes testing overkill.  In addition to stories about resistance to standardized exams from a dozen states, many excellent commentaries were published in the past few days.

Remember that back issues of these updates are online at http://fairtest.org/news -- click on the red button at the top of the page to Donate to support FairTest's work making testing reform news and distributing it.

Overuse of High-Stakes Tests Feeds Cheating Explosion -- USA Today editorial response by FairTest
    http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/04/22/standardized-tests-cheating--editorials-debates/2104923/

High-Stakes Testing Exposed . . . Again
    http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=11240#more

Education "Reform" Missing Another "R" -- Results
    http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/education-reform-missing-another-r-word-results-rf9hgtc-202854471.html

How Do You Evaluate Teachers Who Change Lives? (not by "value-added" test scores)
    http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/04/17/28cella.h32.html

New York Parents: My Kids Not Taking Another Standardized Test
    http://news.yahoo.com/york-parents-kid-not-taking-another-standardized-test-025008171.html
Parents Outraged by Common Core Testing
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/education/common-core-testing-spurs-outrage-and-protest-among-parents.html

Error by Testing Giant Pearson Shuts 2,700 NYC Students Out of Gifted-and-Talented Classes
    http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/exam-error-shuts-2-700-gifted-talented-programs-article-1.1322573

Chicago Students Plan Boycott of State Test
    http://www.wbez.org/news/students-want-boycott-state-test-106735

In Bid to Pare Exams, Texas Targets Pearson
    http://www.texastribune.org/2013/04/21/taking-aim-testing-firm-quest-pare-state-exams/
State Tests Impede Learning
    http://www.statesman.com/news/news/opinion/westerlund-state-tests-impede-learning/nXQR3/
Crash Test: A History of Texas Testing and the Growing Resistance
    http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/history-of-standardized-testing-in-texas

Portland Students Protest High-Stakes Testing
     http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/04/cleveland_high_school_students.html

Ohio School Administrators Under Investigation in Another Cheating Scandal
     http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/04/17/ohio-new-school-cheating-scandal

Testing Regime Fails Georgia Students
     http://onlineathens.com/opinion/2013-04-20/blackmon-testing-regimen-failing-georgia-students

Only Bubble-Headed Zombies Rely on Standardized Testing in North Carolina
     http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/04/13/2821145/our-bubble-headed-zombie-creating.html

Testing time: Anxious Kids. Angry Parents. Approaching Revolution
     http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/get-schooled/2013/apr/20/testing-time-anxious-kids-angry-parents/

Teaching to Test Takes Away From Education
     http://www.seminolechronicle.com/vnews/display.v/ART/516ffd6a3ad3b

School Uses Bribes and Threats to Make Students Take Tests
     http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/04/22/school-warns-students-no-test-no-sports/

Standardized Testing: The Great Deception
     http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-rhonda-joy-edwards-vansant/standardized-testing-the-_1_b_3118062.html

Testing Addiction is Real School Scandal
     http://www.toledoblade.com/Keith-Burris/2013/04/21/The-real-school-scandal-is-our-testing-addiction.html

How High-Stakes Testing Transformed My Job From Great to Infuriating
     http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/04/21/teacher-how-my-job-went-from-great-to-infuriating/

The First Race to the Top
     http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/21/opinion/sunday/the-first-testing-race-to-the-top.html
 

Change the Stakes RALLY Friday, 4PM: CLEANING UP the MESS of HIGH STAKES TESTING

MORE teachers will be joining with Change the Stakes parents this Friday at 4PM. Following this event some MOREs and ICEers will be going out to dinner for informal election return analysis.

Note the editorial pages and cartoons of the papers are jumping on parent opt-outers as coddling their kids. Just shows you how threatening this movement is to ed deformers. 


Whether or not your children took the state tests, please join a rally in front of Tweed on FRIDAY 4/26 at 4pm to protest the ways that high-stakes testing is robbing our children of a decent education!
  BRING THE KIDS!

RALLY 

CLEANING UP the MESS of HIGH STAKES TESTING and 
Putting Back the 'PUBLIC' in Public Education

Our children are NOT a test score!

WHEN:  Friday, April 26 at 4 pm*

WHERE:  TWEED NYC Department of Education
52 Chambers Street
(4, 5, 6 to Brooklyn Bridge.  N, R to City Hall.  J to Chambers Street)

WHO:  Families, Teachers, Children and Supporters of Educational Justice

WHY:  Because private schools already said "NO!" to high stakes testing!
Because WE demand 180 days of learning!
Because schools should foster a love for life long learning.
Because positive relationships between schools and families are at the core of learning.

BRING SIGNS with YOUR VISION and DEMANDS for the SCHOOLS 
we want OUR CHILDREN to be in.  
Bring Mops, Brooms, Scrub brushes, 
Buckets and cleaning supplies to Mop UP the MESS!  
Bring #2 Pencils for us to transform them into a new vision of Public Education

JOIN Change The Stakes (www.changethestakes.org)
and Time Out From Testing (www.timeoutfromtesting.org)
*Rain Date:  Tuesday, April 30 @ 4 pm


Like this on facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/121996241329636/?notif_t=plan_edited

Monday, April 22, 2013

Randi Sellout Tour Coming to Fruition in Newark

if you can't trust these people with the budget, how are you going to trust them with teacher pay? Too many details were left to be ironed out later. Well, now it's later. And NJDOE is unveiling a teacher evaluation system so illogical, innumerate, deceptive, ill-informed, and frankly bizarre that the prospect of a fair merit pay system looks increasingly remote.

One of our fave bloggers, Jersey Jazzman, who followed the Newark contract talks in depth on his blog, gives us the latest update, which he translates into: NJ's new teacher evaluation system: Operation Hindenberg

Joe Del Grosso joins a long line of local leaders from Detroit, Hartford, Washington DC in allowing Randi in the room during negotiations, something our pals in Chicago were sure to avoid. Excuse my poor excuse for photoshopping the addition to Dave Bellel's great graphic.





 Buyer's Remorse in Newark
The head of the Newark Teachers Union, Joe Del Grosso, is not very happy these days
Six months since Newark and its teachers union agreed to a historic new contract, the president of the NTU has publicly blasted Superintendent Cami Anderson over the district's finances. 
“I am writing to you about a serious problem that has persisted in the state-operated district of Newark,” wrote Joseph Del Grosso, president of the Newark Teachers Union, in a stinging letter to the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Schools on Friday. 
Since we came to an agreement on a contract for the teachers, aides, and clerks, we have experienced very serious and disturbing problems regarding the finances of Newark Public Schools,” the letter read. 
Calling for an external audit of the district’s books, Del Grosso cited plans for laying off about 120 administrators, 60 attendance officers, and possibly others, and what he called an air of secrecy in the district’s central offices.
Wow - where's all the money going?
The district posted a $995 million budget last week for next year, which represents a $30 million cut from this year‘s $1.03 billion. Part of the new budget is an additional $30 million slated for the city’s charter schools.
Adding to the discord, the local board rejected the budget outline earlier this month, a largely symbolic act for a board that has no legal power in the state-run system. Three seats on the advisory board are up for election this coming Tuesday.
In his ninth term as president of the NTU, Del Grosso faces his own internal conflict after approving a contract that was not universally endorsed by his members. The contract includes the state’s first large-scale use of performance bonuses for teachers. [emphasis mine]
And guess what - those merit pay bonuses will be given at the sole discretion of the very administration Del Grosso says is "dominated" by "secrecy." How confident is the leadership of the NTU that the merit pay bonuses are going to be awarded in a fair and transparent manner when they have such a big problem with the Anderson administration over the budget?

As I said before members voted on the contract: if Del Grosso and NTU believed this was the best deal they could get for their members (and I believe them when they say it was), they had an obligation to put it before their members. But part of any negotiation is knowing who you are dealing with: if you can't trust these people with the budget, how are you going to trust them with teacher pay? Too many details were left to be ironed out later...

Well, now it's later. And NJDOE is unveiling a teacher evaluation system so illogical, innumerate, deceptive, ill-informed, and frankly bizarre that the prospect of a fair merit pay system looks increasingly remote.

Joe Del Grosso is a hero in the American labor movement and has my respect. He is to be commended for taking on the Anderson administration, the NJDOE, and Chris Christie over these cuts to Newark's schools.

I just wish he had been a bit more leery of these people back when it counted...

The NEW Caucus in Newark valiantly fought this deal. This summer I hope MORE and NEW Caucus can sit down and chat.

Ravitch Asks the Questions Leo Casey Avoids As He Finds Excuses to Align With Gates

Oh, sophistry, thy name is Leo Casey.

There is nothing like another missive from "AFT/UFT Excuse-maker in chief" Leo Casey to obfuscate an issue.

Last week he asked: Is There A ‘Corporate Education Reform’ Movement?”, using former Superintendent and policy maker Larry Cuban's case for there not being a corporate conspiracy as a jumping off point. Cuban closes with:

these “corporate reformers” have achieved some important and, to my way of thinking, worthwhile changes in the rhetoric and policy of school improvement. I take those changes up in Part 2.

Casey, in trying to justify the collaboration of the AFT/UFT with deformers, tries to distinguish...
two different senses of the term “corporate education reform” – the notion that there is a movement for education reform led by corporate elites and the idea that there is a movement for education reform that seeks to remake public education in the image and likeness of for-profit corporations in a competitive marketplace.
BloomKlein BAD Boys, Bill GOOD Boy

Then Casey jumps to the chase to make Bill Gates the good guy:
Consider the battle fought last year in New York over the publication of individual teacher evaluations in the news media. No less a figure than the billionaire mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, argued vociferously for the continued publication of individual evaluations, defending a practice that he and Joel Klein had initiated and pursued in the New York City public schools. Yet another billionaire reform advocate, Bill Gates, took to the op-ed pages of the New York Times to criticize the publications as counter-productive exercises in public ‘shaming.’ The passage of state legislation prohibiting future publication was attributable to many different factors, most especially public disapproval of this use of individual value-added scores and the political efforts of New York’s teacher unions, but there is no question that the willingness of a prominent member of the corporate elite to speak out on the wrong-headedness of this practice played a role.
No question that Gates helped turn the tide? Wow, now we can feel good about taking his money.

The upshot is that the AFT was right all along to align with Gates, though I remember reading somewhere where Casey actually said it was a mistake after one of Gates' anti-union rants.  Remember the days when Casey/Randi/Peter Goodman were lambasting Klein and painting Bloomberg as the good guy?

Behind this all was the attacks on Randi for writing a piece with Gates Foundation's Vicki Philips. Casey says,
I was reminded of Cuban’s essay and the importance of this distinction after reading some of the commentary in reaction to a recent essay on teacher evaluation written jointly by Vicki Phillips, director of K-12 education programs at the Gates Foundation, and AFT president Randi Weingarten (Full Disclosure: Weingarten is also the president of the Albert Shanker Institute.) From individual blog posts to some reader comments section on Diane Ravitch’s blog, what one found were not political analyses or reasoned objections to the particular points where Phillips and Weingarten were in agreement, but tests of moral purity, in which any discussion of common ground with Gates and the Gates Foundation was regarded as the violation of a pollution taboo
Well, we were clear as to why Randi brought Leo to DC and the Shanker blog, which, under Casey predecessor Matthew Di Carlo, was actually garnering some respect instead of being viewed solely as a mouthpiece to justify anything Randi does.

Now Casey goes after the so-called really bad guys who are not using the Gates subtle approach, ie. the Koch brothers, et al. America’s Union Suppression Movement (And Its Apologists), Part One)

Casey opens by referring to his previous piece and the
logic of forming strategic alliances on specific issues with those who are not natural allies, even those with whom you mostly disagree. This does not mean, however, that there aren’t those – some with enormous wealth and power – who are bent on undermining the American labor movement generally and teachers’ unions specifically. This is part one of a two-part post on this reality.
I love this comment:
The American union movement is, it must be said, embattled and beleaguered... Fueling these attacks is an underlying organic crisis that has greatly weakened the labor movement and its ability to defend itself. Union membership has fallen from a high point of 1 in 3 American workers at the end of WW II to a shade over 1 in 9 today.
Hey Leo, do you think the fact that the AFT/UFT is run in as undemocratic a fashion as feasible has something to do with it? What do you think the teachers at IS 292 where the UFT charter is pushing out programs think of the union?

Maybe your very collaboration on charter schools, testing, merit pay, evaluations is what has helped make us embattled and beleaguered?

Not in the world according to Casey.
With U.S. income inequality at the highest levels since just before the Great Depression, it appears that the nation’s corporate elite are intent on delivering a coup de grâce to what remains of the American labor movement.
In his entire piece, not one mention of Democratic party collaboration in this assault. Maybe in part 2.

But Diane Ravitch doesn't let him get away with it:
Leo Casey explores the context of the anti-union movement here. In state after state, legislatures have wiped out collective bargaining rights. That meant teachers would have no voice in the funding of public schools or their working conditions. Teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions. The so-called reformers are closing public schools and turning the students over to private corporations. 90% of charters are non-union.
The questions that I keep asking are, where was Barack Obama as the efforts to destroy America's workers gained momentum? Why didn't he go to Madison in the spring of 2011? Why did he go instead at the very height of the Wisconsin protests to hail Jeb Bush in Miami as "a champion of education reform?"
Why did his Secretary of Education effusively praise some of the most anti-union, anti-teacher state commissioners of education in the nation, like John White in Louisiana and Hanna Skandera in New Mexico? Why have Secretary Duncan and President Obama said nothing in opposition to the attacks on teachers, the mass closure of public schools, and the growing for-profit sector in education? Why was the Democratic National Convention of 2012 held in North Carolina, a right-to-work state? When was the last time that the Democratic Party held its convention in a right to work state?
In the sophistic world of Leo Casey, Obama/Duncan GOOD!

Oh, and you Unity apologists? Feel free to jump in.

DOE Official: State Ed, Tisch and the power players Pearson etc. are on a mission to destroy parent voice

State Ed, Tisch and the power players Pearson etc. are on a mission to destroy parent voice. This whole thing is a sham. Parents are being bullied and coerced into taking these corporate sponsored assessments. They can NOT be forced take this but State Ed is making it extremely difficult giving the appearance that it is illegal.... Someone who works for the DOE
Interesting point from someone who works for the DOE. Here is the edited email (to protect the sender):
What are teachers supposed to do when a parent shows up with a letter stating that they were not allowing their children to be tested?

Would a school honor such parent requests?

A CSA attorney who said were told by the highest level at the DOE that principals should follow the state testing memo but that any principal who encounters a parent who still refuses to have the child tested AFTER being spoken to one on one etc. should contact the BORO TESTING DIRECTOR...

DOE attorneys say this is not a law this is state Ed policy. Parents can opt out and when push comes to shove principals will be told by testing directors to "provide other meaningful instruction"...

This whole thing is a sham. Parents are being bullied and coerced into taking these corporate sponsored assessments. They can NOT be forced take this but State Ed is making it extremely difficult giving the appearance that it is illegal.

State Ed, Tisch and the power players Pearson etc. are on a mission to destroy parent voice.
See Diane Ravitch on the increasingly pathetic John King (and E4E fave):

For Shame, Commissioner John King!

 

and this as principals increasingly are in revolt (where is the UFT?)


New York Principals UPDATE
Protect our Students' Data
On Monday, the members of the NY Board of Regents are meeting to discuss the state's plan to share highly confidential, personally identifiable student data with the corporation called inBloom, Inc., which plans to share it with for-profit vendors without parental notification or consent. On Friday, the State Education Commissioner of Louisiana announced he was pulling his state's data out of inBloom because of the privacy concerns.

Please send a message to the Board of Regents today asking them to follow Louisiana's lead! You can get a sample message and all necessary email addresses through this link.

Josmar Trujillo: Why My Son is Not Taking the State Tests

One of the strongest motivating factors for our decision was how politicized and pressurized the environment around testing has become.... Josmar Trujillo, parent

I met Josmar, who was co-PTA president a year ago when the DOE wanted to close Peninsula Prep and even though I have a strong position opposing charters, it is still not easy closing down a school. So I wrote a column about the sleazy crew at Tweed and the games they play with everyone. Josmar eventually put his kids in a Rockaway public school.

Why My Son is Not Taking the State Tests

April 18, 2013, 4:00 a.m.
My son and I walked into his school principal’s office on Monday and declared that we refused to take the state exams.

Fittingly, the principal had come from a pep rally for the tests. I paused for a minute. Maybe getting kids pumped up about academics was a good thing but then I thought about all the pressure and anxiety that the rally was masking and I got back to the task at hand.

We were the only ones in the school opting out of the tests. Still, the principal recognized that there was a growing resentment among parents citywide and she was prepared for a case like ours. She calmly explained that the city might punish us for our decision by holding my son back. But she also stepped out from her role as school official and confessed to me that, as a parent, she was not only “proud” of us but that she also had concerns with test-driven public education.

Others also felt this way. A crossing guard I’m friendly told me she put her two sons in catholic school because of her disdain for data-driven curriculum. Both her kids are on their way to college despite the fact that cheerleaders of standardized tests insist the tests prepare our kids for higher learning.

Also, teachers who I had grumbled to about the test-driven curriculum supported us. And who better than teachers, many of them parents themselves, to understand how inappropriate it is to judge children, and their schools, by data points?

I am more than confident that my son would score well on both the English Language Arts and math tests. He reads on a fifth-grade level even though he is in third grade; math is his best subject. So rest assured our decision to refuse this test was not due to fear of poor scores.

One of the strongest motivating factors for our decision was how politicized and pressurized the environment around testing has become.

One example: when we went to the pediatrician to have her sign off on a 504, which would allow my ADHD-affected son to have extra time on his test, she refused to sign. She said a city education official had called to warn her about signing such forms. Instead, my son had to be re-evaluated even though his condition had not changed. The fact that pressure was being placed on pediatricians made it clear to me that the stakes were high indeed. Too high.

When I look at my son, I don’t see a data point or a test score. I don’t look at my son and see future SAT’s or LSAT’s. I see a kid frustrated with “practice tests” and the narrow curriculum his teachers are forced to teach.
I have no doubt my son will go to college if he chooses to. I know life will present him with plenty of pressurized situations but that doesn’t mean I have to “prepare” him now by flooding him with “high stakes” testing, especially not at the age of eight.

No, thanks. We refuse.

Josmar Trujillo is the former co-president of the Peninsula Preparatory Charter School in Rockaway, Queens. 

Sunday, April 21, 2013

DeBlasio Calls for Investigation of Moskowitz Operation: Monday 1PM Press Conf

“If they spent all that money, why are there still holes in the ceiling of the locker room?” asked Pamela Bynoe, president of the Global parents association. As for those special-education renovations, Cecila Green, whose child attends that school, says no major repairs have been done, except for a paint job last summer and some new smart boards. Oh, and those lighting fixtures leaking PCBs? They are still present in all the classrooms of the three public schools. ... Juan Gonzalez
Monday, April 22 at 1PM at Tweed (52 Chambers Street) event calling for an investigation into Success Academy. Bill deBlasio will be hosting a press conference calling for an investigation into Success Academy and Eva Moskowitz.

This alone might make diBlasio my favorite for mayor.

deBlasio will be talking about the special access the NYCDOE gives Eva Moskowitz and the disparities between the schools where she co-locates, her host buildings, and neighboring schools.

deBlasio will also ask for an investigation into the lower numbers of children with special needs and English Language Learners.

See the latest article by Juan Gonzalez.
 

The Department of Education counters that it invested more than $2.1 million in upgrades to the public schools and spent $350,000 on charter school Success Academy Cobble Hill on Baltic Street. The law requires the department to spend at least as much on the public schools, the Brooklyn School for Global Studies, the School for International Studies and Public School 368K.

Construction crews worked feverishly last summer to renovate space for Success Academy Cobble Hill, a new charter school that began sharing space in September with three regular public schools in the same city-owned building on Baltic Street in Brooklyn.

The workers removed decrepit asbestos floor tiles in the hallways and a dozen classrooms assigned to the new charter school. They outfitted new bathrooms. They got rid of old lighting fixtures that had been leaking dangerous PCBs and upgraded electrical lines. They installed new doors, carpeting and furniture, then painted the entire area.

“The Success portion looked like a brand-new school when it was finished,” one teacher said.

But angry parents and teachers say the Department of Education failed to provide similar improvements for three public schools in the same building, as mandated by state law.

That law was passed several years ago when the state lifted caps on the number of charter schools. It requires the DOE to “spend the same amount on each noncharter public school” co-located with a public school “within three months” of the charter school improvements.

DOE officials insist they have done more than the law required.
The agency spent only $350,000 to renovate the Success facilities, agency spokeswoman Marge Feinberg said, while the charter school, part of a chain of charters run by former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz, spent another $340,000 of its own.

At the same time, Feinberg said, the DOE invested more than $2.1 million in upgrades to the three public schools — the Brooklyn School for Global Studies, the School for International Studies and Public School 368K, a special-education program.

The improvements included $1.3 million for new lockers, a new dance studio and fitness room used by the two secondary schools in the building, along with $770,000 this winter to completely gut and create new classrooms for the special-education program, Feinberg said.
But parents and teachers can’t see where that money went.

“That just blows my mind,” said Clare Daley, a longtime physical education teacher at Global Studies and chairwoman of the teachers union chapter. “There’s no way they spent $1 million on the gym improvements.”

Yes, the DOE cut the girls’ locker room in half and built a small new dance studio, Daley said. And yes, it put up a wall in the boys’ locker room and created a fitness center with some exercise machines. But nothing was done to repair the shower rooms that haven’t worked for years or the fetid bathrooms that adjoin the locker rooms.

“If they spent all that money, why are there still holes in the ceiling of the locker room?” asked Pamela Bynoe, president of the Global parents association.

As for those special-education renovations, Cecila Green, whose child attends that school, says no major repairs have been done, except for a paint job last summer and some new smart boards.

Oh, and those lighting fixtures leaking PCBs? They are still present in all the classrooms of the three public schools.
jgonzalez@nydailynews.com

Saturday, April 20, 2013

6 Insulting Things NYSED Keeps Repeating/ Growing the Resistance

NYState, John King, Merryl Tisch and their band of merry deformers are taking a beating in the blogging world while the simpering mainstream press remains -- well, simpering. As does the UFT.

Here are some of our local guys taking a few shots:

NYC Educator: Authentic Assessments

RBE: John King Takes His "Tour Of Fear" To Suburban Districts

Below this great piece by Kris Nielsen @TheChalkFace are some comments from NYC activist parent Lisa Donlan.

6 Insulting Things NYSED Keeps Repeating

APRIL 20, 2013 BY  5 COMMENTS
Every time the media reports a story about brave and caring parents who are allowing their kids to refuse the state tests, the reporters go ask NYSED officials to comment (in the name of fairness).  What the officials of our education department offer are soundbytes and talking points that are ridiculous, at best, and completely insulting, at worst.  Without further ado, here are the six most insulting things that NYSED keeps repeating in the media.
#6  Parents don’t care about their kids’ progress
whatever
Dennis Tompkins, a spokesman for the State Education Department, said, “Parents who keep their children from these tests are essentially saying ‘I don’t want to know where my child stands, in objective terms, on the path to college and career readiness’ and we think that’s doing them a real disservice.”
What Dennis is effectively saying here is that teachers are worthless in regards to teaching and assessing your kids.  He believes that parents are actually hurting their own kids by allowing teachers–who spend hours and days with their students watching and listening and evaluating–to assess kids.  Here’s a history tidbit: teachers have been objectively and qualitatively measuring students’ progress for a very long time.  And if there’s one thing we’ve already found out over the past decade, standardized tests do not objectively measure student progress.  That’s not even what they’re designed for, according to John King.
#5 We should expect that our kids feel pain
Dennis Walcott, NYC Chancellor of Schools (not NYSED, but still), famously stated that he knows the tests will be incredibly difficult and that several students will not pass, which may hurt their little hearts and minds, but “It’s time to rip the Band-Aid off, and we have a responsibility to rip that Band-Aid off.”
Our first question is: What Band-Aid?  Does this imply that our schools and our kids are bleeding and there is some temporary tourniquet keeping our education system from bleeding out?  If so, then the analogy is sort of clever, in a not-so-innovative way.  But the fact is, ripping the Band-Aid off with tests that we know our kids are going to fail is not a cure.  This assumes that the state tests are like Neosporin, which can speed the healing.  Wrong.  You can’t heal a problem by causing more damage.
#4 Parents are a bad influence on their children
Kids
              are like flowers. You have to smother them with dirt. Er,
              I mean, tests.
These flowers are happy because I told them to be.
Ken Wagner, Associate Commissioner of NYSED, told the New York Times that he was worried that the concerns of parents were rubbing off on their children, causing kids to suffer anxiety about the state tests.  He’s then quoted as saying, “My heart goes out to any kid that’s suffering stress or anxiety, but we have to think very strategically about the messages that students are getting from the adults they are around.”
Two major problems with this: (1) the parent concern was a direct result of kids’ anxieties and fears, not the other way around; and (2) who gets to make the “strategy” regarding what messages kids get to hear from their concerned parents?  If there’s one thing that’s getting very tiring around here, it’s listening to state officials trying to tell parents how to parent.  It’s especially tiring because the parental “advice” they’re offering has nothing to do with kids–it has only to do with not making their corporate buddies mad.
#3 Without the state tests, children will never be ready for college and/or career
We’re going to use Ken Wagner again, from the same article, because he’s such a pompous liar.  However, this line has been repeated ad nauseum by many different officials.  We hear it over and over again.  The Common Core State Standards are the “answer” to our kids’ inabilities to succeed in college or the workforce (that one was from John King).  The problem with this cheap and overused line is that there is no evidence, whatsoever, to back it up.  The standards have never been tested, never been shown effective, and have actually been deemed inappropriate for the 21st century, if you use models from other countries as an example.
And the tests do not prepare kids.  They do not evaluate kids.  They aren’t designed to track student progress.  (Again, that is also what John King said.)  Now, Bill Gates does want to use them to track our kids, but not in the way that we would like.
We also hate that this statement makes a blanket assumption about all kids.  In order for our students to get into college, they must learn everything in the standards and pass tests.  You know who doesn’t care about state tests?  Ask your closest university.

#2 Stressing your kids to the point of vomiting is healthy.
I don't think
              that crying kid is "healthy" enough.
I don’t think that crying kid is “healthy” enough.
Merryl Tisch, who is also not technically part of NYSED, is the Chancellor of the Board of NY Regents.  She was seen in a recent Wall Street Journal piece responding to reports from principals, teachers, students, and parents of kids breaking down crying during and after tests, vomiting during tests, and not wanting the leave the bathroom–all due to the anxieties and stress of the overwhelming English-Language Arts testing during the last three days.  Her response was that she visited several schools and only saw one kid crying.  TheWall Street Journal then goes on:
But she called it a “healthy problem.” It would be worse, she said, if tests were described as unfair or poorly done. Last year, for example, the state had to toss out questions related to a passage that was widely ridiculed for being confusing. “I would be so bold as to say they were better than most people expected them to be,” she said.
So, it’s healthy for our kids to suffer this way, according to the obviously out-of-touch and basically stone-hearted Tisch.  And we’re going to go ahead and join the growing camp of people with test design experience who suggest that this year’s tests are not just poorly done and unfair (which we can only assume from the stories we’ve heard, since we can’t see the tests for at least another year).  They are a flat-out disaster.  They are, as Chris Cerrone has written, a #fail–with a hashtag!.
#1 Even though the tests don’t mean anything for students, they should do them anyway.  Because they’re hard.
Taking money from Pearson is "hard."
Taking money from Pearson is “hard.”

Coming in at number one is our friend, John King,
DictatorCommissioner of New York State Education Department.  You can find many stories of Dr. King repeating the same things as his cohorts above.  But what really gets our goat is his nerve when trying to tell New York parents how to educate their kids, and then doing the complete opposite.
He tells us, as parents, that we should encourage our kids to try things that are hard, while letting them know that the most important thing is that they tried their best.
Hey parents: is there anyone out there who doesn’t do this on a pretty consistent basis?
But here’s the thing, John.  We don’t ever tell them, for months on end, that if they don’t do well on something, then their teachers will get a bad grade and that their schools will suffer.  They may even have to give up some fun classes and activities because, if you can’t pass the tests like a normal kid, you’re going to have to take extra math and reading classes.  These are kids, John.  They aren’t your lackeys.
And that’s not even the worst part.  We know, thanks the New York Times, that John King’s own children don’t take state tests.  They don’t go to a school that’s drowning in the Common Core.  That’s very, very confusing.  If the Common Core is the “answer” to college and career readiness, and the state tests are the only objective way to determine if kids are going to make it, then are John King’s kids doomed ?
------
Commentary by Manhattan parent activist Lisa Donlan

I suppose if the Head of the Regents "only saw one child crying" there is no problem!

What garbage! No one should be reduced to tears by an assessment. Ever! 

These tests now fully constitute child abuse- the stakes, the length, the intensity, the higher level, the poor construction, the disconnect from curriculum, the secrecy, the lack of accountability, and the flying-the-plane-as-we-build-it approach together constitute a crime against children.

This is our chance to build opposition far and wide- teachers, parents students MUST speak out and say NO!

What about creating a large speak out of some kind to hear from students/teachers how unfair the tests are?
In my district, the students and teachers and even administrators  seem to have reached a boiling point.

Most want to get through the math tests before standing up and speaking out, though- too many of our schools are under threat of closure w/ Eva and other charters waiting literally in the wings.

Schools with high needs and at risk students often feel they can not afford to boycott when their existence is already so tenuous.
Families of at risk kids often feel can  not take on their administrations, can not take on the risk of needing to assemble a portfolio that has to be judged by a teacher, then a principal then a sup.

How do we extend a hand to these families and communities, include their pain and push back w/o asking them to sacrifice what they can not afford?

I think a large carnival-type, flash mob full of anger and refusal followed up by speakers telling their personal stories would be very effective.
Test Me Maybe- rewritten w/ Pineapples and Nike and repeat passages?

What if we had them going the same day or same week in different communities?
I am sure we collectively could do a good parody!
Don't test me, baby!

Below are the lyrrics to the song with some suggested modifications. Feel free to chip in. 

I threw a wish in the well,Don't ask me, I'll never tellI looked to you as it fell,And now you're in my way
Johnny threw up on his test
The class hid under the desks
Teach said just do your  best
Though Pearson's in our way

I'd trade my soul for a wish,Pennies and dimes for a kissI wasn't looking for this,But now you're in my way

We just want to learn 
But  two, three, fours  we must earn
or our teachers will get burned
If Bloomberg gets his way

Your stare was holdin',Ripped jeans, skin was showin'Hot night, wind was blowin'Where you think you're going, baby?

Name brands had a front row
Ipods,  Nike, Lego on show
Authentic text is about more dough
Where is our data going baby?

Hey, I just met you,And this is crazy,But here's my number,So call me, maybe?

Hey I just took the test
It was crazy
too long to finish
Don't test me, baby!

It's hard to look right,At you baby,But here's my number,So call me, maybe?
It is hard not to cry
like a baby
when two answers look right
Don't test me maybe?

Hey, I just met you,And this is crazy,But here's my number,So call me, maybe?
And all the other boys,Try to chase me,But here's my number,So call me, maybe?
You took your time with the call,I took no time with the fallYou gave me nothing at all,But still, you're in my wayThe tests are longer and 
I beg, and borrow and stealHave foresight and it's realI didn't know I would feel it,But it's in my way
Your stare was holdin',Ripped jeans, skin was showin'Hot night, wind was blowin'Where you think you're going, baby?
Hey, I just met you,And this is crazy,  [ From: http://www.metrolyrics.com/call-me-maybe-lyrics-carly-rae-jepsen.html ]But here's my number,So call me, maybe?

It's hard to look right,At you baby,But here's my number,So call me, maybe?
Hey, I just met you,And this is crazy,But here's my number,So call me, maybe?
And all the other boys,Try to chase me,But here's my number,So call me, maybe?
Before you came into my lifeI missed you so badI missed you so badI missed you so, so bad
Before you came into my lifeI missed you so badAnd you should know thatI missed you so, so bad
It's hard to look right,At you baby,But here's my number,So call me, maybe?
Hey, I just met you,And this is crazy,But here's my number,So call me, maybe?
And all the other boys,Try to chase me,But here's my number,So call me, maybe?
Before you came into my lifeI missed you so badI missed you so badI missed you so, so bad
Before you came into my lifeI missed you so badAnd you should know that
So call me, maybe?

Read more: CARLY RAE JEPSEN - CALL ME MAYBE LYRICS 

It's hard to look right,At you baby,But here's my number,So call me, maybe?
Hey, I just met you,And this is crazy,But here's my number,So call me, maybe?
And all the other boys,Try to chase me,But here's my number,So call me, maybe?
Before you came into my lifeI missed you so badI missed you so badI missed you so, so bad
Before you came into my lifeI missed you so badAnd you should know thatI missed you so, so bad
It's hard to look right,At you baby,But here's my number,So call me, maybe?
Hey, I just met you,And this is crazy,But here's my number,So call me, maybe?