The school year is wrapping up, and without exception, it has been the most difficult one of my career.
It was not difficult in the sense of not knowing what to do, how to manage the students, or any of the other requisite skills that teaching as a career requires. Rather, it was difficult in the emotional and psychological sense.
For several years now, we as public educators have been under fire. Movies such as Waiting for Superman have deliberately skewed public perception of our schools: their successes, their failures, and most of all, their students and staff.
Through conversations with fellow educators, I know that I am not alone in having felt at times over the past several years demoralized, unappreciated, and overlooked. Through conversations with my students, I am certain that they too have come to feel the pressure of seemingly endless standardized testing; SGOs (Student Growth Objectives) which are purportedly designed to assess the quality of the teacher, but only wind up adding yet another test to the students' schedules; and of myriad other educational initiatives, most of which are not borne out even in the slightest by educational research.
And then the parents heard us.
The parents heard the cries of their children, and the cries of their children's teachers. They have risen up as a mighty force, conquering and vanquishing foes whose fortunes and favors extend far and wide. They have risen up with a primal cry in refute, refusing to allow their children to be treated like so many guinea pigs in the experimental laboratory of contemporary education.
And I thank you for it.
You, parents, have heartened me, and brought me a greater sense of peace and hope. Together, I hope that we can defend the educations of our children, mine included.The stakes are too great for us to do anything else. As I care for my children- in my heart, soul, and self- I am sure that this is how you care for yours.
Together, we CAN and WILL overcome the virulent forces amassed against us. We have already garnered several victories, the last of course being the removal of Cami Anderson from Newark. True, her replacement is no angel. However, the point is made. They can (and will) write whatever they want in education deform-friendly periodicals, but in my eyes, she is gone because of the incredible and intense pressure that students, parents, educators, and community members placed on our lawmakers.
Hooray for us!
And so, allow us to continue to fight the good fight. To be sure, this will be a long, protracted conflict. There is too much money at stake for it to be otherwise. However, we have something on our side that they can never match: our love for and fierce defense of our children. As we care for them, so may we fight together to secure schools which are fit for their upbringing and growth.
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Beware the Next Generation
Sometimes it stinks to be right.
Last week, Governor Christie shook things up by insinuating that he would be pulling NJ out of Common Core (CC). Today, John Mooney reported on Commissioner Hespe's apparent moderation of those provocative comments by suggesting that the process of re-evaluating CC would be a "highly deliberative" process, and that the end product may not be terribly different from what is already in place (http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/15/06/03/hespe-justifies-review-of-common-core-suggests-changes-may-not-be-drastic/).
Even worse, Hespe took the opportunity to set the next stage in the course towards nationalization of all standards, and the elimination of local control from that equation. As I'm sure my readers already know, Common Core standards only address language arts and mathematics, which has left the question of standardization across all other subjects open for speculation. Apparently, the time has come to eliminate those questions from the minds of America's parents and their children.
Enter the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
As a teacher, for better or worse I am often exposed to many of the educational reforms impacting our classrooms before they show up on the news, as they are implemented and promoted through professional educational networks before splashing across the front pages of newspapers nationwide. I would like to warn my readers of a new potential threat: the Next Generation Science Standards.
First of all, let's confront the absolute misnaming of these standards. The word "State" is deliberately inserted into the title, but to imply that the states independently generated these standards is disingenuous. Here is a little information on NGSS, from their own website:
"In a process managed by Achieve, states led the development of K-12 science standards that are rich in content and practice and arranged in a coherent manner across disciplines and grades to provide all students an internationally-benchmarked science education." (http://www.nextgenscience.org/development-overview)
So, states led the development of the standards, but the whole process was managed by some group known as Achieve.
Why do I feel like I've heard that name before??? Oh yeah:
As I explained in my last entry, Achieve is a non-profit funded by the Gates Foundation "to support comprehensive benchmarking and review of academic standards and assessments between states" (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database/Grants/1999/10/OPP369).
And here they go, yet again...
So, readers, be wary of anything with the title "Next Generation" attached to it- other than Star Trek episodes, that is. This is very likely the same bilk as Common Core being repackaged and resold to address subjects other than language arts and math.
Last week, Governor Christie shook things up by insinuating that he would be pulling NJ out of Common Core (CC). Today, John Mooney reported on Commissioner Hespe's apparent moderation of those provocative comments by suggesting that the process of re-evaluating CC would be a "highly deliberative" process, and that the end product may not be terribly different from what is already in place (http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/15/06/03/hespe-justifies-review-of-common-core-suggests-changes-may-not-be-drastic/).
Even worse, Hespe took the opportunity to set the next stage in the course towards nationalization of all standards, and the elimination of local control from that equation. As I'm sure my readers already know, Common Core standards only address language arts and mathematics, which has left the question of standardization across all other subjects open for speculation. Apparently, the time has come to eliminate those questions from the minds of America's parents and their children.
Enter the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
As a teacher, for better or worse I am often exposed to many of the educational reforms impacting our classrooms before they show up on the news, as they are implemented and promoted through professional educational networks before splashing across the front pages of newspapers nationwide. I would like to warn my readers of a new potential threat: the Next Generation Science Standards.
First of all, let's confront the absolute misnaming of these standards. The word "State" is deliberately inserted into the title, but to imply that the states independently generated these standards is disingenuous. Here is a little information on NGSS, from their own website:
"In a process managed by Achieve, states led the development of K-12 science standards that are rich in content and practice and arranged in a coherent manner across disciplines and grades to provide all students an internationally-benchmarked science education." (http://www.nextgenscience.org/development-overview)
So, states led the development of the standards, but the whole process was managed by some group known as Achieve.
Why do I feel like I've heard that name before??? Oh yeah:
As I explained in my last entry, Achieve is a non-profit funded by the Gates Foundation "to support comprehensive benchmarking and review of academic standards and assessments between states" (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database/Grants/1999/10/OPP369).
And here they go, yet again...
So, readers, be wary of anything with the title "Next Generation" attached to it- other than Star Trek episodes, that is. This is very likely the same bilk as Common Core being repackaged and resold to address subjects other than language arts and math.
Saturday, May 30, 2015
Christie: Rotten to the Core?
On May 28, 2015, Governor Christie announced his grand intention to move away from Common Core Standards and to begin to develop the New Jersey College and Career Readiness Standards.
Wow! Those are really hopeful sounding standards! Were you as excited as me when you first heard this?
Did you also feel, though, like you've heard the words "college and career readiness" before? As an educator, I hear them all the time: in faculty meetings, in emails from administrators, and as here, in the edu-speak of posturing politicians.
Feeling like I had heard them before I decided to do a little digging. Here's what I found:
http://www.achieve.org/what-college-and-career-ready
Achieve, Inc. has been promoting the idea of college and career readiness for several years now. And why shouldn't they? After all, these are worthy and laudable goals that we should all aspire to.
The only problem is this:
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database/Grants/1999/10/OPP369
Achieve, Inc. is a non-profit organization sponsored in whole by the Gates Foundation.
And here we go again...
So, while I sincerely hope that Governor Christie means to "return to New Jersey’s leaders... control over the education our students receive and wrest it away from Washington, DC bureaucrats", please forgive me for having my doubts.
I will say, however, that I think it's WONDERFUL that politicians and the private interests they represent are being forced to strategize, re-name, and re-package their failed educational platforms. This is because of US- the people of the United States- who have spoken up against the tyranny of the ultra-rich and their attempts to monopolize and privatize our public schools.
The fight is started, but the fight is by no means won. In a similar story, PARCC recently announced its intention to reduce overall testing time by 90 minutes. Hooray for us! This also appears to be an effort on their part to mollify the justifiably upset students, parents, and educators who are up in arms about the invasion which standardized testing currently poses in our classrooms.
But it is not yet enough. Our STUDENTS matter more than money. Our CHILDREN are not mere data points to be calculated and corrected on a billiard-ball bounce through school. Rather, they are our most precious resource, and their intellectual, as well as creative, social, and emotional developments need to be looked after. And we as concerned parents, educators, and citizens cannot rest until this- and only this- is accomplished.
Wow! Those are really hopeful sounding standards! Were you as excited as me when you first heard this?
Did you also feel, though, like you've heard the words "college and career readiness" before? As an educator, I hear them all the time: in faculty meetings, in emails from administrators, and as here, in the edu-speak of posturing politicians.
Feeling like I had heard them before I decided to do a little digging. Here's what I found:
http://www.achieve.org/what-college-and-career-ready
Achieve, Inc. has been promoting the idea of college and career readiness for several years now. And why shouldn't they? After all, these are worthy and laudable goals that we should all aspire to.
The only problem is this:
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database/Grants/1999/10/OPP369
Achieve, Inc. is a non-profit organization sponsored in whole by the Gates Foundation.
And here we go again...
So, while I sincerely hope that Governor Christie means to "return to New Jersey’s leaders... control over the education our students receive and wrest it away from Washington, DC bureaucrats", please forgive me for having my doubts.
I will say, however, that I think it's WONDERFUL that politicians and the private interests they represent are being forced to strategize, re-name, and re-package their failed educational platforms. This is because of US- the people of the United States- who have spoken up against the tyranny of the ultra-rich and their attempts to monopolize and privatize our public schools.
The fight is started, but the fight is by no means won. In a similar story, PARCC recently announced its intention to reduce overall testing time by 90 minutes. Hooray for us! This also appears to be an effort on their part to mollify the justifiably upset students, parents, and educators who are up in arms about the invasion which standardized testing currently poses in our classrooms.
But it is not yet enough. Our STUDENTS matter more than money. Our CHILDREN are not mere data points to be calculated and corrected on a billiard-ball bounce through school. Rather, they are our most precious resource, and their intellectual, as well as creative, social, and emotional developments need to be looked after. And we as concerned parents, educators, and citizens cannot rest until this- and only this- is accomplished.
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Bad Move, Bill Gates
On May 5, 2015, a coalition of civil rights groups released a statement decrying the opt out movement which threatens to strike at the heart of the global testing companies (you can read their original statement here: http://www.civilrights.org/press/2015/anti-testing-efforts.html). In a terse, abstruse document which makes Einstein's twin paradox seem easy to understand, the coalition simultaneously speaks out against standardized tests, while criticizing those who have decided that the impact of the current quantity and quality of standardized tests in American schools is harmful to their children, and have therefore decided to opt their children out.
Huh?
Dr. Wayne Au does a great job following the money trail, and it leads back to...you guessed it, Mr William Gates. As Dr. Au explains with penetrating precision, 6 of the 12 groups who signed off on this statement accept substantial donations from the Gates Foundation. An additional 2 receive money from the Walton Foundation, another key mover in the corporate reform agenda (you can read Dr. Au's article here: https://www.facebook.com/SaveOurSchoolsNJ/posts/961331480566679).
There is a distinct, tragic irony in the fact that the world's richest, white man thinks that he knows how to help some of our nation's poorest, many of whom are children of color, to succeed. This smacks of at least a classist, if not a racist mentality. This makes the coalition's statement against the opt out movement even more confounding: why would these important, influential groups choose to defend a wealthy, white oligarch, rather than the children and people upon whom their very mission and founding is based? Well, Dr. Au seems to have answered that question for us already.
This situation is only made more piteous and predictable by the fact that the world's archetypal capitalist has chosen -what else- capitalistic modes and methods to reform the American educational system.
Silly Billy! Capitalism is what created this situation in the first place!!
Perhaps if you had stayed in college, you would have learned about dramatic irony, for you my friend, personify it as well as Oedipus!
But this is not meant to be an ad hominem attack. However, I do hope that it highlights the fact that there probably couldn't be a worse qualified person for the job of reforming our educational system than Bill Gates. He is an enormously privileged, white man who is quite literally the richest man in the world. To drive that point home, Bill Gates' current net worth is approximately 79 billion dollars. Even if a person were to make $1,000,000 a year (which in itself would classify them as superiorly wealthy), it would take 79,000 years to earn the same amount of money as Mr. Gates! To put that in perspective, looking back in time, it would have taken from about the time humans first left Africa until today!
As Mr. Gates seems to demonstrate only too well, that kind of wealth is dangerous. With it comes a kind of social arrogance that seems to place a person above their peers. A person with that kind of wealth can quite literally have anything material that he or she would want.
However, just to remind you, Mr. Gates, there are some things that money can't buy.
It can't buy respect.
It can't buy experience.
It can't buy knowledge.
It can't buy success.
You, my friend, have placed yourself in opposition to parents acting in defense of their children.
Bad move, sir, bad move.
Huh?
Dr. Wayne Au does a great job following the money trail, and it leads back to...you guessed it, Mr William Gates. As Dr. Au explains with penetrating precision, 6 of the 12 groups who signed off on this statement accept substantial donations from the Gates Foundation. An additional 2 receive money from the Walton Foundation, another key mover in the corporate reform agenda (you can read Dr. Au's article here: https://www.facebook.com/SaveOurSchoolsNJ/posts/961331480566679).
There is a distinct, tragic irony in the fact that the world's richest, white man thinks that he knows how to help some of our nation's poorest, many of whom are children of color, to succeed. This smacks of at least a classist, if not a racist mentality. This makes the coalition's statement against the opt out movement even more confounding: why would these important, influential groups choose to defend a wealthy, white oligarch, rather than the children and people upon whom their very mission and founding is based? Well, Dr. Au seems to have answered that question for us already.
This situation is only made more piteous and predictable by the fact that the world's archetypal capitalist has chosen -what else- capitalistic modes and methods to reform the American educational system.
Silly Billy! Capitalism is what created this situation in the first place!!
Perhaps if you had stayed in college, you would have learned about dramatic irony, for you my friend, personify it as well as Oedipus!
But this is not meant to be an ad hominem attack. However, I do hope that it highlights the fact that there probably couldn't be a worse qualified person for the job of reforming our educational system than Bill Gates. He is an enormously privileged, white man who is quite literally the richest man in the world. To drive that point home, Bill Gates' current net worth is approximately 79 billion dollars. Even if a person were to make $1,000,000 a year (which in itself would classify them as superiorly wealthy), it would take 79,000 years to earn the same amount of money as Mr. Gates! To put that in perspective, looking back in time, it would have taken from about the time humans first left Africa until today!
As Mr. Gates seems to demonstrate only too well, that kind of wealth is dangerous. With it comes a kind of social arrogance that seems to place a person above their peers. A person with that kind of wealth can quite literally have anything material that he or she would want.
However, just to remind you, Mr. Gates, there are some things that money can't buy.
It can't buy respect.
It can't buy experience.
It can't buy knowledge.
It can't buy success.
You, my friend, have placed yourself in opposition to parents acting in defense of their children.
Bad move, sir, bad move.
Thursday, May 14, 2015
The Hollowing Out of Education
A disturbing and damaging trend is now afoot in America. Little by little, incrementally, the integrity of our schools is being hollowed out.
In an effort to pander to the powers-that-be, such as state and federal departments of education, schools are in danger of placing their scores above their students. So much stress is placed on test scores, NJ DOE report cards, rankings and the like, that the danger of placing these metrics ahead of authentic student improvement has reached critical levels.
The subtlety with which these changes are enacted is also alarming. The rhetoric is thick, and the charm practically oozes off of some of these initiatives. For example, there has been an enormous increase in AP testing. At first blush, this appears to be a great idea, but if we delve beneath the surface, the waters get decidedly murkier. Students are being encouraged to enter AP classes at lower and lower ages. I have seen, for example, freshmen in high school who are already enrolled in AP classes. College Board itself appears to discourage such practices:
Student performance on AP Exams illustrate that in many cases AP courses are best positioned as part of a student’s 11th and 12th grade academic experience...AP courses are rarely offered in 9th grade, and exam results show that, for the most part, 9th grade students are not sufficiently prepared to participate in a college-level course (http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/Appropriate-Grade-Levels-for-AP-Courses.pdf).
AP classes are rigorous and when a student is properly prepared, they provide an exceptional opportunity to experience a college-like educational experience while still in a high school setting. However, by virtue of the fact that they are so rigorous, it is very important for us as community and school members to ensure that the student is ready, lest they should take the class and have a negative educational experience since they are unprepared for the rigors of the curriculum.
Another issue surrounding the incredible expansion of AP classes and testing is the impact of underprepared students on the overall quality of the AP education. Top-notch AP students have reported dissatisfaction with the pace and preparation that some of their AP teachers are providing to them, based on the fact that the teacher is slowing down to include all learners. Teachers report that they are covering less and less, owing to behavioral disruptions and a growing number of underprepared learners.
Of course, every student who enters AP is another potential AP test taker, and we all know how testing companies love test takers, right??
Still not convinced? Perhaps another example is apt.
In my school, there is a serious cutting issue. Some students cut so much that they are in danger of losing their credits. How should a caring, concerned staff confront such an injurious behavior?
Well, the answer is really quite simple, if we follow the numbers. Simply stop counting cuts.
What?! If you felt a spark of outrage and horror flare up inside of you, then perhaps you feel a little like us many days. For tragically, this is how systems sometimes safeguard themselves to the deficit of the learners.
Cutting class is an educationally damaging behavior. If a student is not present, they are not getting an effective education, and the cumulative effects of chronic cutting can be severe. What's more, there are state laws which regulate attendance, and schools that look the other way on cutting and attendance issues are in danger of violating state law. However, this is exactly the trend that I witness in my school.
The same technique has been applied blanketly on issues such as behavior, attendance, and even grades. It seems that some schools have figured out that the easiest way to make problems go away is to ignore them. If only we had figured this out sooner...
Ok. Perhaps I'm being harsh, but I actually believe in the value of education, and of creating as authentic, rigorous, and rewarding an educational experience as possible for all of our learners. I am less interested in how the numbers measure up, and more interested in creating authentic learning opportunities for our students everyday. And this is why I write this- not as an attempt to incriminate schools, though in some cases I find the behavior of certain administrators reprehensible- but rather because I believe that much of this number magic has been spawned by program like NCLB, RTTT, school report cards, and other ranking systems which have placed schools in a hyper-competitive environment, desperate for survival.
I KNOW that authentic reform is possible, even in urban areas, and I KNOW that it definitely does not take the opening of a charter school to do it. I know this because I have seen strong leaders with good rapport with students, staff, and community members do it. Unfortunately, they are hard to come by and I suppose that authentic reform isn't always as flashy or fresh as the latest educational fad. Still worse, it doesn't put wads of money in the pockets of the corporate reformers.
Still, for the sake of our students, I hope that we will all take a step back from the hyper-competitive environment in which we are placing our schools, and rather than threaten, punish, or even close them, seek new, creative, and research-based ways to aid our ailing schools.
In an effort to pander to the powers-that-be, such as state and federal departments of education, schools are in danger of placing their scores above their students. So much stress is placed on test scores, NJ DOE report cards, rankings and the like, that the danger of placing these metrics ahead of authentic student improvement has reached critical levels.
The subtlety with which these changes are enacted is also alarming. The rhetoric is thick, and the charm practically oozes off of some of these initiatives. For example, there has been an enormous increase in AP testing. At first blush, this appears to be a great idea, but if we delve beneath the surface, the waters get decidedly murkier. Students are being encouraged to enter AP classes at lower and lower ages. I have seen, for example, freshmen in high school who are already enrolled in AP classes. College Board itself appears to discourage such practices:
Student performance on AP Exams illustrate that in many cases AP courses are best positioned as part of a student’s 11th and 12th grade academic experience...AP courses are rarely offered in 9th grade, and exam results show that, for the most part, 9th grade students are not sufficiently prepared to participate in a college-level course (http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/Appropriate-Grade-Levels-for-AP-Courses.pdf).
AP classes are rigorous and when a student is properly prepared, they provide an exceptional opportunity to experience a college-like educational experience while still in a high school setting. However, by virtue of the fact that they are so rigorous, it is very important for us as community and school members to ensure that the student is ready, lest they should take the class and have a negative educational experience since they are unprepared for the rigors of the curriculum.
Another issue surrounding the incredible expansion of AP classes and testing is the impact of underprepared students on the overall quality of the AP education. Top-notch AP students have reported dissatisfaction with the pace and preparation that some of their AP teachers are providing to them, based on the fact that the teacher is slowing down to include all learners. Teachers report that they are covering less and less, owing to behavioral disruptions and a growing number of underprepared learners.
Of course, every student who enters AP is another potential AP test taker, and we all know how testing companies love test takers, right??
Still not convinced? Perhaps another example is apt.
In my school, there is a serious cutting issue. Some students cut so much that they are in danger of losing their credits. How should a caring, concerned staff confront such an injurious behavior?
Well, the answer is really quite simple, if we follow the numbers. Simply stop counting cuts.
What?! If you felt a spark of outrage and horror flare up inside of you, then perhaps you feel a little like us many days. For tragically, this is how systems sometimes safeguard themselves to the deficit of the learners.
Cutting class is an educationally damaging behavior. If a student is not present, they are not getting an effective education, and the cumulative effects of chronic cutting can be severe. What's more, there are state laws which regulate attendance, and schools that look the other way on cutting and attendance issues are in danger of violating state law. However, this is exactly the trend that I witness in my school.
The same technique has been applied blanketly on issues such as behavior, attendance, and even grades. It seems that some schools have figured out that the easiest way to make problems go away is to ignore them. If only we had figured this out sooner...
Ok. Perhaps I'm being harsh, but I actually believe in the value of education, and of creating as authentic, rigorous, and rewarding an educational experience as possible for all of our learners. I am less interested in how the numbers measure up, and more interested in creating authentic learning opportunities for our students everyday. And this is why I write this- not as an attempt to incriminate schools, though in some cases I find the behavior of certain administrators reprehensible- but rather because I believe that much of this number magic has been spawned by program like NCLB, RTTT, school report cards, and other ranking systems which have placed schools in a hyper-competitive environment, desperate for survival.
I KNOW that authentic reform is possible, even in urban areas, and I KNOW that it definitely does not take the opening of a charter school to do it. I know this because I have seen strong leaders with good rapport with students, staff, and community members do it. Unfortunately, they are hard to come by and I suppose that authentic reform isn't always as flashy or fresh as the latest educational fad. Still worse, it doesn't put wads of money in the pockets of the corporate reformers.
Still, for the sake of our students, I hope that we will all take a step back from the hyper-competitive environment in which we are placing our schools, and rather than threaten, punish, or even close them, seek new, creative, and research-based ways to aid our ailing schools.
Friday, May 8, 2015
Let's Hear it for John Oliver!
On a recent episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver tackled the prickly topic of standardized testing. Or rather I should say that he delivered the perfect blend of wit, humor, and devastating statistics which have shaken the testing companies enough so that they have fired back.
Shortly thereafter, Pearson shot back with the perfectly contrived response to such a PR crisis. An attractive African American man, who promotes himself as "a proud product of the Bronx Public Schools" jumped onto a Washington Post blog, and explained how parents who care about the educational experiences their children are undergoing have got it all wrong. Pearson is not the enemy, he argues, but rather the poor, misunderstood multinational corporation that is only trying to make the world a better place.
Seriously? Do we look that foolish?
Based on what I've seen in my classroom, I would guess that the only color Pearson actually cares about is green.
As I have mentioned before, I teach in an urban area. I witness firsthand the impact of the incredible increase in standardized testing which has emerged in recent years. Across my tenure as a public educator, I have grimaced as more and more emphasis is placed on standardized testing, with all of the harrowing woes which accompany such a narrow, misguided notion of educational success. To be sure, the paramount concern of the classroom teacher is determining whether or not their students are learning the material in question, however, the school environment is SO MUCH MORE than this. It is a social environment, in which students interact with peers, authority figures, underclassmen, upperclassman, and all sorts of other human beings. Students have to learn the ins and outs of effective communication and navigate the many diverse personalities which surround them. No amount of technology can supplant this, and in most cases, technology has quite the opposite effect of minimizing the social learning experience.
Schools are vibrant, physical communities where learners and teachers come together towards the common mission of enriching our society and our souls. I am proud to call myself a teacher, or at least I have been. As the testing companies and corporate "reformers" (I much prefer the more accurate epithet "deformers") have pushed forward with their agenda of privatization, their high-minded rhetoric, and their deeply destructive behaviors, I find myself teaching less and less. They talk about rigor in the classroom, but we spend less time now with our students than we ever have. They spout on about preparing students for the world beyond the classroom, but I see school officials who dangerously dilute authentic learning experiences because they are more worried about how they will be rated by state and federal departments of education than they are about the effective education they are offering their learners. I see teachers who are exhausted, overworked, and deeply demoralized by the current educational climate. And worst of all, I see students who are frustrated, angry, upset, anxious, and fearing rather than embracing the learning process.
This is AMERICA! Land of the free and home of the brave! We have to do better! Other countries look to us for leadership. Can we honestly and sincerely tell them that this is the best that we can do? Are we really ok with almost 25% of our children growing up in a state of poverty? Is it really ok that the children of the ultra-rich enjoy private schools that have no worry or fear of Common Core or PARCC, while many public school children have come to dread school? This cannot be the way.
There ARE better, more authentic educational reform agendas out there. Finland has done very well with a sincere societal commitment to the importance of education, proper funding, rigorous teacher training, and a whole host of effective educational practices. Even schools in America do just fine when PISA scores and other international indicators are controlled for poverty. In point of fact, New Jersey public schools have perennially ranked among the best in the nation, so if I may ask, what exactly is it that they are so insistent needs to be fixed?!
To be sure, there is always room for growth and improvement, and sometimes it can be very frustrating to encounter the graduation rates, drop-out rates and other academic indicators emerging from our poorest areas. There IS a crisis in America, but I dare say it is not so much an educational crisis as a social crisis. The divide between the rich and poor only seems to grow year after year. The corporate reformers try to paint poverty as simply an excuse, but I suppose that is very easy for ultra-wealthy white men to do. What do Bill Gates, Sam Walton, or Eli Broad really know about the suffering and devastation which poverty wreaks on the soul? How can they truly place themselves in the position of a teen whose only meal is a free school lunch where the green beans are grey and tomato paste counts as a vegetable? How can they appreciate the life of a student who wakes up early to get their little brothers and sisters to school, then attends school themselves, and then goes straight to a job to help out their family?
And how does the corporate reformer respond to such stresses? By stripping school of its joy and spontaneity, by making automatons out of our children, and creating cookie cutter classrooms that are as lifeless as they are ineffective. Trust me; while teachers may not have all the answers, I can promise you that this is not it.
Shortly thereafter, Pearson shot back with the perfectly contrived response to such a PR crisis. An attractive African American man, who promotes himself as "a proud product of the Bronx Public Schools" jumped onto a Washington Post blog, and explained how parents who care about the educational experiences their children are undergoing have got it all wrong. Pearson is not the enemy, he argues, but rather the poor, misunderstood multinational corporation that is only trying to make the world a better place.
Seriously? Do we look that foolish?
Based on what I've seen in my classroom, I would guess that the only color Pearson actually cares about is green.
As I have mentioned before, I teach in an urban area. I witness firsthand the impact of the incredible increase in standardized testing which has emerged in recent years. Across my tenure as a public educator, I have grimaced as more and more emphasis is placed on standardized testing, with all of the harrowing woes which accompany such a narrow, misguided notion of educational success. To be sure, the paramount concern of the classroom teacher is determining whether or not their students are learning the material in question, however, the school environment is SO MUCH MORE than this. It is a social environment, in which students interact with peers, authority figures, underclassmen, upperclassman, and all sorts of other human beings. Students have to learn the ins and outs of effective communication and navigate the many diverse personalities which surround them. No amount of technology can supplant this, and in most cases, technology has quite the opposite effect of minimizing the social learning experience.
Schools are vibrant, physical communities where learners and teachers come together towards the common mission of enriching our society and our souls. I am proud to call myself a teacher, or at least I have been. As the testing companies and corporate "reformers" (I much prefer the more accurate epithet "deformers") have pushed forward with their agenda of privatization, their high-minded rhetoric, and their deeply destructive behaviors, I find myself teaching less and less. They talk about rigor in the classroom, but we spend less time now with our students than we ever have. They spout on about preparing students for the world beyond the classroom, but I see school officials who dangerously dilute authentic learning experiences because they are more worried about how they will be rated by state and federal departments of education than they are about the effective education they are offering their learners. I see teachers who are exhausted, overworked, and deeply demoralized by the current educational climate. And worst of all, I see students who are frustrated, angry, upset, anxious, and fearing rather than embracing the learning process.
This is AMERICA! Land of the free and home of the brave! We have to do better! Other countries look to us for leadership. Can we honestly and sincerely tell them that this is the best that we can do? Are we really ok with almost 25% of our children growing up in a state of poverty? Is it really ok that the children of the ultra-rich enjoy private schools that have no worry or fear of Common Core or PARCC, while many public school children have come to dread school? This cannot be the way.
There ARE better, more authentic educational reform agendas out there. Finland has done very well with a sincere societal commitment to the importance of education, proper funding, rigorous teacher training, and a whole host of effective educational practices. Even schools in America do just fine when PISA scores and other international indicators are controlled for poverty. In point of fact, New Jersey public schools have perennially ranked among the best in the nation, so if I may ask, what exactly is it that they are so insistent needs to be fixed?!
To be sure, there is always room for growth and improvement, and sometimes it can be very frustrating to encounter the graduation rates, drop-out rates and other academic indicators emerging from our poorest areas. There IS a crisis in America, but I dare say it is not so much an educational crisis as a social crisis. The divide between the rich and poor only seems to grow year after year. The corporate reformers try to paint poverty as simply an excuse, but I suppose that is very easy for ultra-wealthy white men to do. What do Bill Gates, Sam Walton, or Eli Broad really know about the suffering and devastation which poverty wreaks on the soul? How can they truly place themselves in the position of a teen whose only meal is a free school lunch where the green beans are grey and tomato paste counts as a vegetable? How can they appreciate the life of a student who wakes up early to get their little brothers and sisters to school, then attends school themselves, and then goes straight to a job to help out their family?
And how does the corporate reformer respond to such stresses? By stripping school of its joy and spontaneity, by making automatons out of our children, and creating cookie cutter classrooms that are as lifeless as they are ineffective. Trust me; while teachers may not have all the answers, I can promise you that this is not it.
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Christie and Common Core
Governor Christie is a deeply dishonest man.
In 2011, he brokered a deal with NJ pensioners, including teachers, which called for us to make greater contributions to our pensions and to pay significant amounts towards our medical benefits for the first time. I must admit he did this in a very clever and deceptive way, in the sense that gross salaries were not impacted, which likely would have led to far greater resistance. Rather, he left gross salaries untouched, but significantly reduced actual take-home pay.
-Very slippery, indeed.
Christie hailed this 2011 pension reform as his "greatest governmental victory". On his side, he promised to make certain contributions to the pension system. However, Governor Christie has repeatedly failed to live up to his side of the pension reform agreements, and instead of infusing the fund with much needed resources, has borrowed recklessly from them, further endangering the already hobbled system.
Recently, he was ordered by a NJ Superior Court to make the payments that he himself agreed to in 2011. Governor Christie has now stated that the very law that he brokered and signed is unconstitutional, and that as a result he should not have to abide by it.
-Now this level of self-deception simply shocks me.
On the matter of Common Core, here's what he said in August, 2013 at a KIPP Charter Schools educational conference (http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/02/christies_flip-flop_on_common_core_moran.html):
"We are doing Common Core in New Jersey and we're going to continue. And this is one of those areas where I have agreed more with the President than not. And with Secretary Duncan. I think part of the Republican opposition you see in some corners in Congress is a reaction, that knee-jerk reaction that is happening in Washington right now, that if the president likes something the Republicans in Congress don't. If the Republicans in Congress like something, the president doesn't."
And here's what he said on the same issue recently in Iowa:
"I have grave concerns about the way this has been done, especially the way the Obama administration has tried to implement it through tying federal funding to these things. And that changes the entire nature of it, from what was initially supposed to be voluntary type system and states could decide on their own to now having federal money tied to it in ways that really, really give me grave concerns. So we're in the midst of re-examination of it in New Jersey. I appointed a commission a few months ago to look at it in in light of these new developments from the Obama administration and they're going to come back to me with a report in the next, I think, six or eight weeks, then we're going to take some action. It is something I'm very concerned about, because in the end education needs to be a local issue."
Seriously, is this guy for real??
I am one of those people who trusts her gut. I have watched several interviews of Governor Christie and my take-home intuition is that he is deeply self-deceptive. My basic belief is that if he can be so overwhelmingly dishonest with himself, how is there any hope that he will be honest with other people?
Governor Christie has demonstrated a consistent pattern of dishonesty, intimidation, and bullying over the course of his gubernatorial term. From the aforementioned pension reform debacle, to his radical flip-flop on Common Core, to his federally investigated Bridgegate, there is a consistent pattern of dishonesty and expediency. I for one hope that he goes no further than New Jersey. And I will be very glad when we also are rid of him.
In 2011, he brokered a deal with NJ pensioners, including teachers, which called for us to make greater contributions to our pensions and to pay significant amounts towards our medical benefits for the first time. I must admit he did this in a very clever and deceptive way, in the sense that gross salaries were not impacted, which likely would have led to far greater resistance. Rather, he left gross salaries untouched, but significantly reduced actual take-home pay.
-Very slippery, indeed.
Christie hailed this 2011 pension reform as his "greatest governmental victory". On his side, he promised to make certain contributions to the pension system. However, Governor Christie has repeatedly failed to live up to his side of the pension reform agreements, and instead of infusing the fund with much needed resources, has borrowed recklessly from them, further endangering the already hobbled system.
Recently, he was ordered by a NJ Superior Court to make the payments that he himself agreed to in 2011. Governor Christie has now stated that the very law that he brokered and signed is unconstitutional, and that as a result he should not have to abide by it.
-Now this level of self-deception simply shocks me.
On the matter of Common Core, here's what he said in August, 2013 at a KIPP Charter Schools educational conference (http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/02/christies_flip-flop_on_common_core_moran.html):
"We are doing Common Core in New Jersey and we're going to continue. And this is one of those areas where I have agreed more with the President than not. And with Secretary Duncan. I think part of the Republican opposition you see in some corners in Congress is a reaction, that knee-jerk reaction that is happening in Washington right now, that if the president likes something the Republicans in Congress don't. If the Republicans in Congress like something, the president doesn't."
And here's what he said on the same issue recently in Iowa:
"I have grave concerns about the way this has been done, especially the way the Obama administration has tried to implement it through tying federal funding to these things. And that changes the entire nature of it, from what was initially supposed to be voluntary type system and states could decide on their own to now having federal money tied to it in ways that really, really give me grave concerns. So we're in the midst of re-examination of it in New Jersey. I appointed a commission a few months ago to look at it in in light of these new developments from the Obama administration and they're going to come back to me with a report in the next, I think, six or eight weeks, then we're going to take some action. It is something I'm very concerned about, because in the end education needs to be a local issue."
Seriously, is this guy for real??
I am one of those people who trusts her gut. I have watched several interviews of Governor Christie and my take-home intuition is that he is deeply self-deceptive. My basic belief is that if he can be so overwhelmingly dishonest with himself, how is there any hope that he will be honest with other people?
Governor Christie has demonstrated a consistent pattern of dishonesty, intimidation, and bullying over the course of his gubernatorial term. From the aforementioned pension reform debacle, to his radical flip-flop on Common Core, to his federally investigated Bridgegate, there is a consistent pattern of dishonesty and expediency. I for one hope that he goes no further than New Jersey. And I will be very glad when we also are rid of him.
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