We find ourselves at a point in the progress of education
reform in which clear acts of conscience will be necessary to preserve
the integrity of public education. We can no longer implement policies
that seek to transform the broad promises of public education into a
narrow obsession with the ranking and sorting of children. .. Teachers of Conscience
Jia Lee is a core member of MORE and Change the Stakes and Chapter Leader at the Earth School. Feel free to download the letter and share with your colleagues. MORE recommends anyone doing this seek legal advice. A massive resistance effort -- like something supported by a real union -- would begin to turn the tide. (I'm going to follow up with a powerful parent letter to Farina).
http://teachersofconscience.wordpress.com/
DOWNLOAD Letter
“The ongoing wars, the distortions of
truth we have witnessed, the widening gaps between rich and poor disturb
us more than we can say; but we have had so many reminders of
powerlessness that we have retreated before the challenge of bringing
such issues into our classrooms. At once, we cannot but realize that one
of our primary obligations is to try to provide equal opportunities for
the young. And we realize full that this cannot happen if our students
are not equipped with what are thought to be survival skills, not to
speak of a more or less equal range of literacies. And yet the tendency
to describe the young as “human resources,” with the implication that
they are mainly grist for the mills of globalized business is offensive
not merely to educators, but to anyone committed to resist
dehumanization of any kind.”
Dear Chancellor Carmen Fariña,
We are teachers of public education in the City of New York. We are
writing to distance ourselves from a set of policies that have come to
be known as market-based education reform. We recognize that there has
been a persistent and troubling gulf between the vision of individuals
in policymaking and the work of educators, but we see you as someone who
has known both positions and might therefore be understanding of our
position. We find ourselves at a point in the progress of education
reform in which clear acts of conscience will be necessary to preserve
the integrity of public education. We can no longer implement policies
that seek to transform the broad promises of public education into a
narrow obsession with the ranking and sorting of children. We will not
distort curriculum in order to encourage students to comply with bubble
test thinking. We can no longer, in good conscience, push aside months
of instruction to compete in a city-wide ritual of meaningless and
academically bankrupt test preparation. We have seen clearly how these
reforms undermine teachers’ love for their profession and undermine
students’ intrinsic love of learning.
As an act of conscience, we are declining the role of test
administrators for the 2014 New York State Common Core Tests. We are
acting in solidarity with countless public school teachers who have
paved their own paths of resistance and spoken truthfully about the
decay of their profession under market-based reforms. These acts of
conscience have been necessary because we are accountable to the
children we teach and our pedagogy, both of which are dishonored daily
by current policies.
The policies of Common Core have been misguided, unworkable, and a
serious failure of implementation. At no time in the history of
education reform have we witnessed the ideological ambitions of
policymakers result in such a profound disconnect with the experiences
of parents, teachers, and children. There is a
growing movement
of dissatisfied parents who are refusing high-stakes Common Core
testing for their children and we are acting in solidarity with those
parents. Reformers in the State Department of Education are now making
gestures to slow down implementation and reform their reforms. Their
efforts represent a failure of imagination — an inability to envision an
education system based on human development and democratic ideals
rather than an allegiance to standardization, ranking, and sorting.
State policies have placed haphazard and burdensome mandates on schools
that are profoundly out of touch with what we know to be inspired
teaching and learning. Although the case against market-based education
reform has been thoroughly written about, we feel obliged to outline our
position at length to address critics who may see our choice of action
as overstepping or unwarranted. You will find a
position paper attached to this letter. We are urging you, Chancellor Fariña, to articulate your own position in this critical and
defining moment in the history of public education. What will you stand for? What public school legacy will we forge together?
Sincerely,
Colin Schumacher, 4th/5th Grade Teacher, P.S. 364, Earth School
Emmy Matias, 4th/5th Grade Teacher, P.S. 364, Earth School
Jia Lee, 4th/5th Grade Teacher, P.S. 364, Earth School
Download the position paper or read it at the Port Jefferson Station TA site:
Teachers of Conscience Position Paper