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 KRIS NIELSEN 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

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

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.

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.”

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?

Nation of Change: The Real Terrorists are the Corporate Execs Who’ve Bought the Regulators

Call me a social justice unionist, but I believe we should be using the powers of our unions to expose the corporate thieves. But then again people like Leo Casey, in his justification for AFT/UFT Vichydom, denies there is even a corporate agenda for ed deform (Is There A “Corporate Education Reform” Movement?).  But let's leave that one for another time.


Nation of Change:
http://www.nationofchange.org/real-terrorists-are-corporate-execs-who-ve-bought-regulators-1366467845

The Real Terrorists are the Corporate Execs Who’ve Bought the Regulators

The way I see it, we had two acts of terrorism in the US this week. The first took place at the end of the historic Boston Marathon, when two bombs went off near the finish line, killing three and seriously injuring dozens of runners and spectators. The second happened a couple days later in the town of West, Texas, where a fertilizer plant blew up, incinerating or otherwise killing at least 15, and injuring at least 150 people, and probably more as the search for the dead and the injured continues.

It’s pretty clear that the Boston Marathon bombing was an act of terrorism, with police making arrests and having killed one of the two suspects who had earlier been captured on film and video at the scene of the bombings.
The villains in the West Fertilizer Co. explosion can be much more easily identified: the managers and owners of the plant.

West Fertilizer was built starting back in 1962 in the middle of the small town of West, TX, a community founded in the 19th century and named after the first local postmaster, T.M. West. It makes no sense, of course, to locate such a facility that uses highly toxic anhydrous ammonia as a primary feed stock (a compound that burns the lungs and kills on contact, and that, because it must be stored under pressure, is highly prone to leaks and explosive releases), and one that makes as its main product ammonium nitrate fertilizer, around lots of people. Ammonium nitrate, recall, is the highly explosive compound favored by truck bombers like the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. It was the fertilizer, vast quantities of which were stored at the West Fertilizer plant site, which caused the colossal explosion that leveled much of the town of West.

Building such a dangerous facility in the midst of a residential and business area, and allowing homes, nursing homes, hospitals, schools and playgrounds to be built alongside it, is the result of a corrupt process that is commonplace in towns and cities across America, where business leaders routinely have their way with local planning and zoning commissions, safety inspectors and city councils. Businesses small and large also have their way with state and federal safety and health inspectors too.

We know that the EPA, back in 2006, cited West Fertilizer for not having an emergency risk management plan. That is, a dangerous and explosion-prone plant that was using a hazardous chemical in large quantities, and that was storing highly explosive material also in large quantities, had made little or no effort to assess the risks of what it was doing. Indeed, it has been reported that the company had assured the EPA, in response to the complaint, that there was “no risk” of an explosion at the plant! An AP article reports that the company, five years after being cited for lacking a risk plan, did file one with the EPA, but that the report claimed the company “...was not handling flammable materials and did not have sprinklers, water-deluge systems, blast walls, fire walls or other safety mechanisms in place at the plant.”

NationofChange fights back with one simple but powerful weapon: the truth. Can you donate $5 to help us?

Yet the AP article goes on to say that “State officials require all facilities that handle anhydrous ammonia to have sprinklers and other safety measures because it is a flammable substance, according to Mike Wilson, head of air permitting for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.” 

The article says:

“Records reviewed by The Associated Press show the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration fined West Fertilizer $10,000 last summer for safety violations that included planning to transport anhydrous ammonia without a security plan. An inspector also found the plant's ammonia tanks weren't properly labeled.”

  Then the article gets to the crux of the problem, saying:

“The government accepted $5,250 after the company took what it described as corrective actions, the records show. It is not unusual for companies to negotiate lower fines with regulators.”

Aside from the ridiculousness of West Fertilizer management’s reported assertion that the plant wasn’t handling flammable materials (a claim that the current deadly catastrophe has demonstrably proved was false), consider the incredible response of the EPA to this incredible assertion: The agency, emasculated by the Bush administration, and still a joke under the Obama administration, levied a pathetically small fine, but did nothing to shut the operation down until it put in place critical safety measures.

The other agency that could have acted, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), is even more of a paper tiger than the EPA. Despite their inherent risks and hazards, it is reported that OSHA has made only six investigations of fertilizer plant operators in Texas in the last six years. West Fertilizer was not one of them. In six years, it has not been visited by OSHA inspectors!

How can this be so? Because the entire health and safety regulatory apparatus of the US, from the federal level to the states and right down to local government, has been effectively neutered by corporate interests, who have used everything from threats of relocating to campaign contributions and outright bribes of officials and elected representatives to buy or win the right to basically operate as unsafely as they like, free of supervision.
As a result, regulation of dangerous plants and factories in the US these days is essentially nonexistent.

That, to me, is a kind of terrorism, and it is far more dangerous to the health and safety of the American people than any foreign or domestic terrorist or terrorist organization.

Yet the bulk of the American people are focusing their fears on terrorists from abroad, or in some cases here at home, not on the corporate suites where the real evil and the real danger lies.

Until we Americans wake up and insist that our elected officials and the regulatory bureaucrats they appoint, actually act in the public interest and not in the interest of the moneyed corporate elite (booting out those that betray us), we will increasingly all pay the price as plants blow up or leak toxic gas, as oil and gas companies wantonly pollute our water tables with carcinogenic toxins, and as nuclear power plants dump isotopes into our environment, all in the interest of profits.

The real terrorists in our midst are not men with knapsacks and white baseball caps who plant homemade bombs. They are not swarthy terrorists from the Middle East. Rather, they are the mostly white men (and women) in business suits on Wall Street and Main Street who callously use their wealth to subvert the political system to their short-term advantage, causing common-sense safety and health precautions to be ignored, or getting those laws watered down or outright cancelled.

Of course, a classic terrorist is trying to kill while the corporate executive is often “just” putting concerns about profits ahead of concerns about the safety or workers and people who live nearby, but in the final analysis, the victim of an exploded fertilizer plant is just as dead or as maimed as the victim of a terrorist’s bomb. The difference is that we won’t see the FBI or the local police tracking down and arresting the killers and maimers in the case of a fertilizer plant explosion. The people responsible for that type of outrage typically just hide behind the immunity of their company's corporate "personhood," collect their insurance payments (maybe paying some token fine), rebuild, and go on making their dangerous product as before -- usually in the same location.

State Ed Dept, in Cahoots with Pearson, Forces Field Tests Under Threats

I saw an SED memo last week stating that the field tests were mandatory. This is the first time I have ever seen anything like this from SED. As a former superintendent I always refused to administer field tests and got away with it (albeit with much SED resistance). While they may not have any authority to mandate the tests, they indeed are sending the message to districts that they indeed must administer them and students must take them  ... William Cala has left a new comment on your post "Fred Smith Explains Field Tests"

Bill Cala was Superintendent of Fairport NY public schools and an interim Supt of Rochester preceding, JC Brizard who after ruining those schools was hired by Rahm Emanuel to ruin Chicago schools.

MORE/CTS Diana Zavala Battles the Tests

Diana Zavala’s son is in fourth grade in New York. She says she got involved in the movement after she saw a startling change in her son’s attitude. “He was a child who loved school, who was curious and eager to learn and experiment and I noticed he was coming home worn down, stressed and unmotivated,” she said. “I also noticed he was interacting with his sister in a multiple-choice style of way offering her choices with letters attached to the questions. He talked about reading levels and not loving books. He talked about being a number three or four and cared about competing with his classmates rather than collaborating with them in a group activity.” Zavala is now a member of Change The Stakes and The Movement Of Rank-and-File Educators (MORE), both are strive to move the system away from testing and more to educating. When she first got involved, parents saw what she was doing as “an anomaly, a reaction to my son’s emotions. They thought that there could be potential harm in doing what I was doing: pulling out of testing,” she said. “I think parents no longer feel this way.” ..

New York Parents: My Kid’s Not Taking Another Standardized Test!

While an educator, Diana is not currently teacher. She is active as a parent leader in Change the Stakes and a member of MORE, though she is not eligible to run in the elections. MORE has parent members.

Read the full piece here.

http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/04/18/parents-students-protest-standardized-test-new-york?cmpid=wfs-twtr

Fred Smith Explains Field Tests

I was reading through your site (Change the Stakes) and could not easily locate any info about any past or pending NYS field testing for the elementary or middle grades. I am a Long Island parent whose child has refused to take the NYS ELA and Math assessments this year. We are curious if any field testing is coming next, which I think there is some this year, perhaps even computer based. Any insight you can provide is most helpful. Thanks! --- Parent

There is another kind of field testing — known as stand-alone field testing — coming to our students soon. This is where the field test items are contained in separate booklets and results don’t count except for the publisher; the sole purpose is to try out more items for possible use. This will occur in the first week of June. There are three problems about field testing children in June. First, they know the tests don’t count. Second, it’s June. Third, after a test-heavy school year, it is unlikely they will give their best effort and perform optimally. So, the results derived from the stand-alone field tests will be a misleading basis for selecting items for next year’s exams. ---- Fred Smith: excerpt, Field Tests: Unfair Burden on Students at Schoolbook

As the one who monitors comments at CTS, I can't tell you how many parent requests for assistance on opting out have come in and the CTS parent advice crew have been busy. The hope is that CTS expands its outreach to create a bigger opt out movement on the field tests coming up. Field tests are used to check out future questions and don't count. These questions were embedded in the current tests but there are stand-alone tests coming that count for nothing and amount to child and teacher abuse.

In May 2008, middle school teacher Doug Avella discussed the field test with his classes and they all boycotted the tests. Non-tenured Doug was quickly disappeared from the system as the UFT went, "cluck, cluck" with disapproving nods even though the kids took action based on a fair discussion and never implicated Doug's words. The kids were treated like criminals. Here is a link at ed notes:

Ed Notes Online: Support for Doug Avella Builds

May 27, 2008

The students of I.S. 318 stood up for what they thought was right. They have been taught by a beloved teacher whose job is now in jeopardy. It is critical that we stand up right now and show our support for Doug Avella .... Letter from

Sam Coleman and Geoffrey Enriquez, on behalf of NYCORE
Priscilla Gonzalez and Donna Nevel, on behalf of Center for Immigrant Families
Jane Hirschmann, on behalf of Time Out From Testing
Sally Lee, on behalf of Teachers Unite

Fred Smith is the expert on the issue and sent this response to the parent above.

Your question provides and opportunity to talk about the field tersting.

There are two kinds of field tests (FT)--One kind took place today in ELA in grades 3-8--where FT items were embedded in the test booklets among the other items. The FT items do not count in scoring the test. They are there to be tried out so the publisher can see how the items work and can decide which ones to use next year. The other items will count. They are referred to as operational items. Scores will be based on student performance on these items.

For example, today's 3rd grade ELA test (Booklet 1) contains 30 items (5 reading passages followed by multiple-choice items). Children have 70 minutes to complete the test. They don't know which items count and which do not (i.e., the FT items). The test publisher hasn't said how many of the 30 items are FT test items--only that FT items are included on the test.

A safe assumption is that at least one reading passage about 500-600 words in length was being tried out along with the set of multiple-choice items associated with the passage. If everything was evenly balanced, that would mean about six items were being tried out with this passage--and would take about 14 minutes to complete -- one fifth of the allotted testing time.

The publisher (Pearson) is using four forms of the test to try out items. What does this mean? The four forms will consist of the same operational items, but each form will contain one of four sets of FT items.
So Booklet 1 will have 30 items with the same items that count and a unique set of unrefined items that are being tried out. The publisher represents the four forms as A, B, C and D.

The following is how this arrangement might look, based on the 3rd grade example I gave: (P=operational passage; O=operational multiple-choice items following the passage; FTP=field test passage; FT=field test multiple-choice item)

Form A: P-OOOOOO / P-OOOOOO / P-OOOOOO / P-OOOOOO / FTP-FTFTFTFTFTFT
Form B: P-OOOOOO / P-OOOOOO / P-OOOOOO / FTP-FTFTFTFTFTFT / P-OOOOOO
Form C: P-OOOOOO / FTP-FTFTFTFTFTFT / P-OOOOOO / P-OOOOOO / P-OOOOOO
Form D: FTP-FTFTFTFTFTFT / P-OOOOOO / P-OOOOOO / P-OOOOOO / P-OOOOOO

The State Education Department (SED) has said that the FT material will be interspersed with the operational material. Since students don't know which readings and items will count from the material that is being field tested, students will be expending energy of parts of the test that will probably wear them out and frustrate them, because SED has called for tougher, more challenging items. That will have a bearing on how well they do on the test. It is likely they would do better if the test was limited to the 4 operational passages and 24 operational items.

Furthermore, since one-quarter of the students get one of the four forms, then the children who get Form D or Form C will run into the FT items (by definition less refined than the other items) right from or near the start of the test and have a greater chance of being worn out and defeated before they get to the end of the test compared to children taking Form A--who, even if they don't finish the FT items, will have a better chance of completing all the items that count.

[This has implications in New York City, where the Department of Education (DOE) makes extrapolations based on student test scores to student promotions. teacher evaluations and school ratings--clearly, high-stakes decisions that may well rely on which FT form a given class of students happens to take.]

By the way -- tomorrow ELA Booklet 2 will contain embedded multiple-choice items in all grades--3 through 8. And next week, the first two days of the math tests--Booklets 1 and 2 will contain the FT items.

The other kind of field testing is known as stand-alone field testing. This is where the FT items are contained in separate booklets and the results don't count except for the publisher. The sole purpose is to try out more items for possible future use. This will take place in the first week of June (the same as it did last year.)

SED has never established that taking the field tests is mandatory. Nor has SED cited any legal authority that requires students to sit for either the embedded items or the stand-alone. This lack of authority makes the June stand-alone field test an ideal target for resistance. I believe that not taking this week's and next week's exams on the grounds that children are being forced to engage in field testing would add a strong argument to the reasons they should not have to sit for the exams. More on that below.

Last year 20 forms (12 ELA and 8 math) were tried out in June--a service deliverable not called for in SED's contract with Pearson. The reason for this was that the four April forms did not generate enough of a pool of items to build this year's (i.e., this week's) tests. So the June 2012 field testing was hastily arranged.

There are three things wrong with field testing kids in June. First they know the tests don't count for anything. Second, it's June. C'mon, after a year of being bashed by tests--you're asking kids to concentrate on more items, take them seriously and perform optimally (the rationale behind embedded field testing). Third, as a consequence, the children are not motivated to perform their best. Therefore, the results derived from the June stand-alone field tests will be a misleading basis (or source of intelligence, if you will) for selecting items for next year's exams.

But there is a more fundamental and insidious problem lurking in the field tests. It is a reflection of the top down arrogance in Albany that insinuates children into taking the field tests (both embedded and stand-alone), which are nothing more than experimental, serving the commercial interests of the test publisher, and making children the subjects of research -- without bothering to seek the permission of parents to allow their children to participate in otherwise un-required testing activity. Doing so violates the right of parents to do what is best for their children. It is a form of exploitation to perpetuate the kind of high-stakes testing that has channeled all the creative energies of teachers and students into testing. Parents are entitled to know what is going on and to have a say in what's going on.

Making matters worse there will be stand-alone field testing again this year at the beginning of June--throughout the state in ELA and math. Most schools will have assignments to administer the try-out exams. And, just as SED did last year--it will try to keep parents in the dark about the field tests until the last minute. That's because SED understands well that these tests are not required and, if parents knew they were coming and more classroom time was being sacrificed, they would opt out of the stand-alone field tests. SED obviously feels there is a greater need to satisfy the publisher and keep the testing going than to show respect and regard for parents.

The answer going forward next week and up to the first week of June is to mobilize parents to refuse to take tests with the embedded FT items, which parents never signed onto. And between now and June --it is imperative to mobilize against the coming stand-alone field tests and to reach consensus to boycott them. This is a fight we can and must win to prevent the seeds of the next year's test from sprouting.

Fred Smith

School Bus Parents to Rally today at Department of Education for the right to Safe, Stable Busing

**Media Advisory**

School Bus Parents to Rally today at Department of Education for the right to Safe, Stable Busing

Contact:        Johnnie Stevens    917.402.4755 pistnyc@gmail.com
                       
April 19, 2013, New York – Members of the group Parents to Improve School Transportation (PIST), who say they are fed up with chaotic bus routes and downgrading of the service, will hold a rally today to announce they are continuing to organize for respect for the riders and employees on the school bus.  Members of the affected unions will be there to give an update on negative actions being taken by the school bus companies, and the DOE Contracts Department’s failure to intervene. 

WHAT:           Rally and speakout

WHO:             Families of people who ride or work on yellow school buses in New York City


WHEN:           Friday, April 19, 12:00pm

WHERE:         Outside Department of Education
                        65 Court St. (between Joralemon and Livingston)
                        Brooklyn, NY 11201  

WHY:             Parents want a School Bus Bill of Rights.  They are disgusted--but not surprised--by the recent revelation that the mayor and chancellor knew all along that seniority hiring is not illegal and yet took action that provoked a painful strike.  Many children have a legal right to safe, stable busing as a related service under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. 
 

MORE's Patrick Walsh: Fear and Loathing and the Common Core

... everything about the Common Core State Standards

Initiative, beginning with its name, stinks to high heaven. Everything about this privately funded, privately owned, secretly created scheme, sponsored by the un-elected National Governors Association and given pseudo academic legitimacy by the equally unelected but lofty sounding Council Of Chief State School Officers, is meant to obscure or hide altogether what the Common Core is, why it exists and how it came — ready or not –  to be rammed down the throat of almost every school kid in American — including the ten year olds I saw pointlessly suffer through  it the  past three days. --- Patrick Walsh

While MORE as an organization has not delved into the common core waters, most MOREs like Patrick are strongly against it. I for one am against it because people like Susan Ohanian and Leonie Haimson are against it while all the corporate slugs mentioned by Patrick, a MORE candidate for UFT Executive Board elementary school, are for it. Plus of course Randi Weingarten and Michael Mulgrew.

Patrick, another great MORE candidate, writes the Raginghorseblog.
He is a chapter leader in a Harlem elementary school. 

Fear and Loathing and the Common Core

April 18, 2013

This morning, like yesterday morning and the morning before that, I was complicit in the wholesale corporatization of American public school education, playing my small but essential role in a corporate experiment of unprecedented proportions and titanic intent.     This morning and yesterday morning and the morning before that, I, like thousands of my fellow teachers, administered to my students the first of a promised endless battery of New York State standardized tests, all aligned to the new Common Core State Standards, all designed to insure the ten year olds in my charge were on track to be “college and career ready”, the better to help them succeed in the global economy and “win the future.”

Read MORE at
http://raginghorse.wordpress.com/2013/04/18/fear-and-loathing-and-the-common-core/

Lee Sustar on CORE and MORE: Voting on the future of teacher unionism

Updated, 10AM.

Unity also follows the lead of the AFT's Weingarten--who used to be president of the UFT herself--in trying to establish a partnership with the "liberal" wing of business-driven education reformers. Thus, AFT official Leo Casey, a former UFT vice president and longtime Unity strategist, could write recently [11] that there's really no such thing as a corporate education reform lobby--a difficult position to maintain with billionaires like Bill Gates and the Walton family pushing privatization, and big companies like Pearson and News Corp. scheming to get their hands on the half-trillion-dollar education market. --- Lee Sustar

I'm sure some people can punch some holes in Lee's analysis. Like the LA story knowing that PEAC took some serious losses in the last election to Fletcher after having a big role in running the LA union makes me take pause that their initiative means much. I think sometimes the left is always looking on the sunny side of the street. (But then again if you believe in socialism, that must go with the territory.) Even here in NYC I find some of the stuff I hear almost laughable.

But Lee is spot on in raising the Leo Casey "deny, deny, deny the conspiracy, once Bloomberg is gone all will be well" thesis.

Then this:

the differences between the UFT and the CTU were highlighted at a separate meeting during Lewis' New York trip [9], in which the CTU president appeared alongside her New York counterpart, Michael Mulgrew. The expansive and well-paid UFT officialdom must have been uncomfortable when Lewis recalled how CORE officers cut their pay and perks upon taking office. Lewis also blasted charter schools, highlighting another CTU difference with the UFT, which operates its own unionized charter schools.

You mean there's bloat at the UFT? But they work soooooo hard.
I'll have a lot more to say about MORE and the elections over the next two weeks, not all of it aligned with Lee.

MORE will be holding a victory party on Thursday April 25 right after the vote count is completed at around 5PM at a bar on W. 35 St.

If you are interested in doing some election analysis, an ad hoc group of people are meeting Friday at 5:30 to talk about it at the Skylight Diner, 34th and 9th ave.

Voting on the future of teacher unionism

Lee Sustar looks at the issues surrounding votes in the three biggest teachers locals.

April 18, 2013

UNION LEADERSHIP elections in Chicago and New York City and a member referendum in Los Angeles are highlighting debates over the direction of teacher unionism.

The choice is whether the strategy of militancy and social movement unionism that won a teachers' strike in Chicago will point the way forward--or teachers unions will keep retreating in the face of the ever-escalating assault by corporate-driven school "reformers."

At an April 14 kickoff event for her slate's re-election campaign, Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) President Karen Lewis told a crowd of 100 members and supporters of the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE): "What I am so humbled by is the hard work that people, not only in this room, but around the city, do on a daily basis to stop the madness of corporate school reform."

MORE/Change the Stakes Teacher Lauren Cohen: NYSUT Clamps Down on Free Speech

I agree wholeheartedly that, if I am unhappy with my union, it is my duty as a member to work for change. I am a candidate for UFT Elementary Executive Board on the MORE (Movement of Rank and File Educators) slate, so I hope to do just that! ... Lauren Cohen

Lauren, that a teacher could receive a threat for openly speaking about her educational philosophy is an outrage, and not just a violation of your rights. As a parent I consider it my absolute right as well to freely discuss with the educators in charge of my children's schooling ALL aspects of curriculum, assessment and teaching methods -- anything and everything that affects teachers' work with my children. Anyone who interferes with that free speech is in my view guilty of an egregious violation of my fundamental rights as a parent. Thank you for standing up to the bullies, and as the taboos that have constricted open discussion between parents and teachers in our schools fall away, parents and teachers together can show our children how a free and open society really works. ----- Jeff Nichols, NYC Public school parent on Change the Stakes listserve

Lauren Cohen sparked a bit of controversy with her post at The Chalk Face regarding NYSUT president Richard Iannuzzi's email warning to union leaders about the dangers their members might face in giving advice to parents about opting out.

One could take this warning 2 ways. As a "be careful out there" or as a "threat." Either way you look at it, there is a perception that the lack of a sense of support for teachers who might have moral and political reasons for opposing the high stakes testing craze leaves these teachers "out there."

Julie Cavanagh had similar feelings as I posted on Sunday where she raised the frightening thought that even her speech at the Forum at the Earth School later that day could fall into the realm of Iannuzzi's warning. That didn't stop her from making a fabulous speech however.

The Moral Imperative: Julie Cavanagh Opts in on Opt Out Issue

Just a bit about Lauren Cohen before getting to her Chalkface post. We met her a year ago when she attended the GEM teacher evaluation forum and since then she has been very active with Change the Stakes and as a member of MORE. As the "recruiter" for the MORE elementary Executive Board slate I was excited when Lauren accepted our invitation to run, joining a list of great teachers and activists. Lauren has spent years working for an ogre lunatic of a principal and was heading out of country to teach. When she sent out a round of resumes she bravely included the fact that she was an opponent of high stakes testing and an activist. She said she would rather leave the country to teach if she didn't get a job with a principal who appreciated not only her great teaching ability but also her activism, which went hand in hand. And she got a job at one of the more progressive schools in the city. Lauren exemplifies so many of the MORE people. Great teachers. Great activists.

So here is Lauren's somewhat remarkable letter home to parents followed with her reaction to the Iannuzzi letter which was forwarded to her. There are some interesting comments at TCF below her article taking Iannuzzi's side on this.

NYSUT Clamps Down on Free Speech

April 16, 2013 By Lauren Cohen 23 Comments

 

http://atthechalkface.com/2013/04/16/nysut-clamps-down-on-free-speech/

Dear Readers, I would like to share with you an email I sent last week to my class parents:

April is the cruelest month…
I doubt the NY State Education Department had T.S. Eliot in mind when they made the state testing schedule, but it does seem appropriate. Even with trying to keep test prep – oops, I mean “Defense Against the Dark Arts” – at a minimum, there’s so much I feel obligated to do! [Other 5th grade teacher] and I were talking about the uncertainty surrounding the content on the math test, and she put it really well, “If we see a question on the test about the one thing that we chose not to review, we’re going to feel like we failed our students.” But then I look back at my plan book and realize that we haven’t had a full period of Social Studies in weeks, and I wonder if I’m making the right choice.

Village Voice Reports on MORE Sunday Event

Whatever the ultimate size of the boycott this year, disquiet about standardized testing will remain a live political issue. MORE, the "social justice caucus" of the United Federation of Teachers, organized Sunday's meeting and is running Julie Cavanagh as the underdog candidate .... as president of the nation's largest teachers' union. Cavanagh, a special education teacher in Red Hook and the charismatic and media-friendly director of the documentary The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman, has clearly identified standardized testing as an issue that unites parents and teachers. "The testing boycott movement is happening!" she told the audience. "The movement of social justice to take back our communities is happening! Parents and teachers are leading the way, and unions better get behind them." --- Village Voice

Read the entire Voice piece here.