Schools Matter:
Schools Matter All Week
We had a previous testing frenzy of similar magnitude during the "progressive" Eugenics Era of the 1920s and the 1930s. Harold Rugg referred to it as an "orgy of tabulation." At that time it took the Nazis to remind of where we were headed and a Great Depression to make the test mania unaffordable. What will it take this time? No good idea, strategy, or intervention in educat
Four years of math?
Sent to the Washington Post, May 2, 2014.Maryland will now require all high school students to take four years of math ("Maryland to require math for all years of high school; universities also adjust rules," May 2).The fourth year, moreover, must be "non-trivial," such as algebra 2, trigonometry, pre-calculus, calculus, statistics and college algebra. This is in order to preve
KIPP Teacher Asks: "Would we let this happen if the students were white middle class?"
I interviewed a former KIPP teacher I will call Keith. Keith was highly successful at KIPP for longer than most teachers last at any KIPP, which is 1-2 years. Keith shared a great deal, and much of it I had heard from others: the 80-100 hour weeks, the silent lunches, the incessant chanting, the compulsive attention to detail, the straight lines of uniformed students, the clipboard for keeping
Alabama Makes Clear Parent Rights for Opting Out of State Tests
From AL.com:. . . .“There’s been a lot of concern about the amount of standardized testing that the school system does,” Cox said. “It’s not just a Baldwin County issue; it’s all over the country. Every time the children turn around, they’re being tested for something, and more and more parents have become concerned about it.”Cox stressed that it is permissible for parents to opt out of the tests:
Prospect Heights T Party Dumps the Tests
Teachers at a New York City high school fired a shot across the bow of the concept of a nationalized education industry Thursday, becoming the first in that state to refuse to administer a standardized test tied to the controversial Common Core national standards.The boycott by teachers at Prospect Heights International School in Brooklyn comes amid a small but growing “opt out” movement in which
MAY 01
The common core: A bad solution aimed at the wrong problem
Sent to Newsweek Alexander Nazaryan ("Sorry, Louis C.K., but You’re Wrong About Common Core," May 1) says our schools need the increased "rigor" of the common core because they are so bad: "China, South Korea and Germany are leaving us in the chalk dust, most Americans can barely find America on the map ...".Not so. When researchers control for the effect of povert
Almost Half of Worcester Central School Students Refuse State Tests
4/30/2014Nearly half the students at Worcester Central School refused to take mandated tests in third through eighth grades. Thanks to a concerted social media effort, 45 percent of the students--maybe the highest percentage in the state--opted out of the English Language Arts and math tests. Repercussions for the school lie in the future and are unclear, according to Superintendent Bill Diamond.
The Art of Removing the Rotten Core
Coming on the heels of the rapacious profiteering and privatizing scheme of NCLB, and designed in the dark by a tiny team of technocrats led by the prissy Platonist, David Coleman, the Common Core was doomed from the start. Designed, without doubt, to be the testing delivery system to guarantee another generation of harder tests and more school meltdowns and subsequent takeovers, the arrogant educ
Notes from the Road: Some Observations about What is Wrong with the Good Fight
by Doug MartinDuring my talk recently to the Southeast Education Task Force in Indianapolis, a member of the Indiana Department of Education said there wasn’t a manufactured crisis in education, that our kids were indeed, many of them, failing. She quoted some Ph.D who appeared with Condi Rice recently, the former Bush official who has a Exxon tankernamed after her and helped the profiteers hand
APR 30
The Dirt on Bob Behning’s Reelection Money
by Doug MartinIn my book Hoosier School Heist, I detail the corporate/theocratic billionaires who are out to destroy Indiana public education, and the same people in my book are behind Bob Behning’s reelection campaign. In fact, the Hoosiers for Economic Growth PAC, founded by an Amway/Besty Devos/Walmart/Overstock.com/hedge fund front group, just gave Behning $45,000, two days ago. Hoosiers f
"Withering test prep regimens" Continue in New York Despite New Law
With absolute fealty to Wall Street and the vulture philanthropists who pay for the Governor's allegiance to New York's 21st Century segregated cultural sterilization testing camps, Cuomo dares not touch the urban sprawl of charter school programs for the poor, which are based, of course, on round the clock test prep. After all, how else, without test scores, could these dehumanizing hellholes pr
If You Are Going to KIPP's Free Happy Hour Recruiting Sessions, Read This First
Excerpt of interview with former KIPP teacher:INT: Let me ask you this question: if I were a friend of yours interested in teaching at a KIPP school and I asked you what was it like there, what would you tell me? R: I would say honestly, I’ve had that question before. I would never ever – I told them I wouldn’t wish that experience on my worst enemy. That’s exactly what I say every time--I
Poetry Month's Last Day Fragment
Poetry Month’s Last Day FragmentOf days marked by verses sung across clocks and rulerssongs to celebrate all our gold variously graded, finely ground against boot marked hardwood desksfor eons of crumpled yellow tablets and shavings of graphite hissing anti-insouciant intensities codedand set loose on verbal metronomes calibrated to cross one another without ever touching, ticks and tocks bending
Teachers at International HS at Prospect Heights Refuse to Give NYC ELA Test
From Monty Neill: **Media Advisory** 26 Teachers and Staff of International High School at Prospect Heights refuse to give NYC ELA Performance Assessment Test WHEN: Thursday, May 1, 2014, 7:45-8:20am, WHERE: International High School at Prospect Heights, 883 Classon Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11225 WHAT: Teachers will hold a press conference to announce their refusal to administer the NYC ELA Perfor
The Gates Foundation's Teach Plus once again trying to undermine United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA)
"Bill Gates's foundation pays educators to pose alternatives to union orthodoxies regarding seniority and test scores." "Two other Gates-financed groups, Educators for Excellence and Teach Plus, have helped amplify the voices of newer teachers as an alternative to the official views of the unions. Last summer, members of several such groups had a meeting at the foundation’s offices
APR 29
CorpEd Profiteers and Privatizers on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown Over Test Refusal
NEWSWashington PostMalloy: CT could lose money if many students opt out of standardized testsThe CT MirrorGov. Dannel P. Malloy said Monday that federal law restricts students from opting out of taking standardized tests, and if the state were to give students ...Flag as irrelevantMinneapolis Star Tribune (blog)Superintendent responds on test opt-outsMinneapolis Star Tribune (blog)Superintendent r
Defending the Indefensible in the Late Days of the Testing Orgy
The testing madness is underway this week in Tennessee, where a week of TCAP counts 15-25 percent of a student's grade and 35-50 percent of a teacher's evaluation for the other 195 days of the school year. Is that reason enough for 3rd graders to be vomiting and having nosebleeds on their test booklets this week? But the insanity does not stop there. The State of Tennessee is funding the use of
APR 28
The Case Against the Kevin Huffmans of the World
Kevin Huffman was an English major at Swarthmore in the late 80s and never studied child development, pedagogy, history/philosophy of education, or any of the other subjects that are now viewed as irrelevant and even harmful to education policy know-nothings like Arne Duncan and, of course, Kevin Huffman.Considerations of child psychology, historical contexts, and ethical teaching practices are an
Poll of the uninformed
Published in the San Francisco Chronicle, April 28, 2014"Most in state approve of policy shifts in education," April 24: Yes, 69 percent of Californians polled said they liked the Common Core standards after hearing a brief statement about them. The statement said only that they "are designed to ensure that students graduating from high school have the knowledge and skills they ne
APR 27
Duncan Signals a More Activist Role in Destroying Teaching Profession
Since Team Obama came to Washington, ED has doubled down on support for alternative certification programs by handing out hundreds of millions of dollars to stock urban schools with unprepared beginning teachers who don't know John Dewey from Thomas Dewey, or an IEP from IED. In fact, the less knowledge in the art and science of teaching that one of these Teach for America knock-offs emphasizes,
Who's Getting Walmart School Privatization Cash?
From the NYTimes:Last year, the Walton Family Foundation gave $478,380 to a fund affiliated with the Chicago public schools to help officials conduct community meetings to discuss their plan to close more than 50 schools at a time when charters were expanding in the city. . . . .In 2013, the Walton foundation spent more than $164 million across the country. According to Marc Sternberg, who was app
APR 26
I met reactionary Fernando Espuelas' challenge, now will he demand the same of Gates, Zuckerberg, and Dell?
"Another issue involves concerns that charter schools may be screening students by requiring parents to provide information related to special education eligibility and services on the lottery application. Over the past two years, a review of applications has found a considerable number of schools requiring such information despite efforts by the District to eradicate this through oversight o