National Political Debate Ignores Ongoing Problems with School Budgets | janresseger

National Political Debate Ignores Ongoing Problems with School Budgets | janresseger:

National Political Debate Ignores Ongoing Problems with School Budgets

The 2016-2017 school year has begun in the midst of this election season, when politicians are paying scant attention to education as a public issue. But consider these facts from the Associated Press: “About 50 million students are expected to attend public elementary and secondary schools this fall. That’s up just slightly from the 2015-2016 school year…. They’ll be taught by some 3.1 million school teachers from pre-kindergarten through high school….”

The Great Recession of 2008 is still affecting school budgets. Here is the NY Times editorial board last week: “The children entering kindergarten and first-grade this school year were not yet born when the Great Recession ended in mid-2009. Incoming high school seniors were not yet in middle school. But in many states and localities, the wounds to school budgets from recession-era cutbacks are still large, leaving schools with more students and less money.”

Today’s tax and budget policies have further diminished the lagging budgets left by the Great Recession: “The difference has at least as much to do with political priorities as financial challenges. In part, persistent shortfalls in school budgets reflect the depth of the recession and the fitful recovery… (T)hey also reflect stagnation in federal help, which accounts for nearly 10 percent of school budgets. But in states with the biggest school-budget cuts, much of the pain is self-inflicted, because they have cut income taxes in recent years, creating budget shortfalls that make it impossible to adequately finance their schools. Kansas is the most notorious for such counterproductive tax cuts; other offenders include Arizona, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Wisconsin. Oklahoma, in particular, is vying with its neighbor Kansas for the title of most fiscally reckless… Investment in education is crucial to improving long-term productivity; conversely, failure to invest in education portends the decline of living standards over time… The federal government could play a more constructive role in supporting the leaders and coaxing the laggards. It could offer aid to states contingent on improvements to their school budgets.”

Michael Leachman of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities just published a short updateon that agency’s tracking of school spending over time (in inflation-adjusted terms).  He explains that in 2014 (the most recent year for which data is available): “At least 25 states provided less ‘general’ or ‘formula’ funding—the primary form of state funding for schools—per student than in 2008…. In seven states, the cuts exceeded 10 percent.” And local funding also declined in 31 states between 2008 and 2014. At the same time, “The largest federal education program, ‘Title I’ funding for high poverty schools is 4 percent below its 2008 level after adjusting for inflation.”

According to Ben Casselman’s new update from FiveThirtyEight, “The largest challenge for schools… may be longer-term: attracting teachers. Tight school budgets—and the broader pushback against public-sector payrolls in many states—have squeezed teacher salaries.”  Casselman cites a new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) about the growth in the National Political Debate Ignores Ongoing Problems with School Budgets | janresseger:

A back-to-school wish for Connecticut (Guest Post) - Wait What?

A back-to-school wish for Connecticut (Guest Post) - Wait What?:

A back-to-school wish for Connecticut (Guest Post)

Education advocates Jean Jaykus and AnneMarie Surfaro-Boehme were teachers in the Ridgefield Public Schools.  In this commentary piece that first appeared in the Danbury News-Times, they lay out their wish for Connecticut’s public schools.

Connecticut public schools are becoming unrecognizable.

Common Core top-down mandates and pedagogy are ingrained and embedded into the classroom and have infected all our public schools. TheFederal Government and large publishing companies have taken control of our schools, impacting every district in the state. And the taxpayer shouldn’t be fooled by the new “law.”

“The Every Student Succeeds Act” did not do away with the failed Common Core, and does not insure quality education for all our students because of its inflexibility. Common Core still exists in Connecticut, along with the federal government top-down, one-size-fits-all mandates which are destroying public education throughout our country. Connecticut is a state with diverse communities and students. We need to serve all our students.

The Connecticut State Department of Education and our local districts need to take control, decide standards, and write appropriate curriculum now. With the new school year starting, we have a chance to begin fixing the problems and issues facing our public schools. Elected boards of education need to do their homework, and be continuous learners on how to meet the needs of the students in their districts. They need to meet with staff and students, and engage in conversations that will have concrete results and not just rubber-stamp administrative requests. They need to follow the money spent on district initiatives and assessments carefully to be sure their budgets reflect informed decisions.

Our schools do not need more management, mid-level consultants and coaches. This overflow is creating mediocre rigid school systems and infers a lack of confidence in the teaching staff. Schools need administrators who are truly educational leaders who understand the truth about how students learn. They need administrators who care and have the courage and integrity to evaluate and support effective teachers who have the expertise to create a supportive environment for learning, and a commitment to quality education.

Unfortunately, the morale in many districts is low and teachers are A back-to-school wish for Connecticut (Guest Post) - Wait What?:

Ken Previti. What does North Dakota have to do with public school children, veterans with PTSD, and more? | Fred Klonsky

Ken Previti. What does North Dakota have to do with public school children, veterans with PTSD, and more? | Fred Klonsky:

Ken Previti. What does North Dakota have to do with public school children, veterans with PTSD, and more?

 -By Ken Previti. My friend Ken blogs at Reclaim Reform.

What is American racism in 2016?

Imagine white men and women being attacked by dark skinned multinational mercenaries with savage dogs trained to mutilate and kill. The police do nothing to stop them. Neither does the federal government.

That would not happen to white people today.

Or could it?

Attack dogs and paid mercenaries were used against union members and those forming unions in the past.

What makes anyone think that this could not happen during a teachers strike in Chicago?

Or a Walmart strike in Georgia?

Or activists in the State of Washington?

If this insanity is allowed to continue as one minority is selected at one event, what makes any of us believe in “liberty and justice for all”?

One minority at a time. One cause or event at a time.

We are human beings. We are all in this together. Our public school children, our veterans with PTSD, our homeless, our minimum wage earners, our special needs children and adults, our ailing parents and grandparents, and more – many more.

North Dakota is the place to stop this insanity – for the good of us all.Ken Previti. What does North Dakota have to do with public school children, veterans with PTSD, and more? | Fred Klonsky:

The State of Things in Georgia — Vote No on Amendment #1. - Network For Public Education

The State of Things in Georgia — Vote No on Amendment #1. - Network For Public Education:

The State of Things in Georgia — Vote No on Amendment #1.

A big battle looms in Georgia, pitting the usual big-money, backroom supporters of a state takeover school district against the rest of us. It is the same battle being fought all over the country in the struggle against The Chaos Theory plan for public education “reform,” but in this instance those of us fighting against the persistent and well-funded forces of privatization and standardization have reason to be somewhat optimistic, despite the uphill battle we face.

A coalition of various groups and individuals around the state seems well organized, funded at least moderately, and appears to have a winning message in the attempt to turn “low-information voters” into “more-information voters.” The “Opportunity School District,” (whatever they call it – because of course they get to name it with the cheery word “opportunity” – and however they phrase it, including the patently deceptive preamble written by Governor Deal’s own closely-held committee) seeks to follow a model that has failed in other states. The name of the state takeover district and the wording on the ballot garner support, but once people realize what this game is all about, support for the measure falls dramatically.

This is what voters will see when they enter the ballot booth:

Amendment # 1: Provides greater flexibility and state accountability to fix failing schools through increasing community involvement. Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow the state to intervene in chronically failing public schools in order to improve student performance? ___Yes ___No

This is far from a partisan issue, with principled, pro-public school supporters coming out in force and in print against the ballot measure. This wide-ranging coalition of supporters includes conservative activists like Jane Robbins; progressive groups like Better Georgia and Public Education Matters Georgia; parent groups like the Georgia PTA; school superintendents including Phil Lanoue, the 2015 National Superintendent of the Year; teacher groups like GAE, PAGE, and AFT; newspaper editorial boards; professors; individual parents like Athens’ Dan Delamater; and a growing number of community organizations and school districts around the state whose boards are passing resolutions in opposition to the state takeover of local schools. It is a true groundswell of well-reasoned opposition that is bubbling up all over our state.

There is no question that if the only information people have when they walk into the voting booth is what they read on their ballot screen, we will lose. Yes, the intentionally misleading words present a problem for those of us who know what the measure really will do, like State Senator Vincent Fort, who did a great job of rewriting the measure to make clear its actual intentions and effects:

“Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow an appointee of the Governor to take over local school operation, buildings, and control of all federal, state, and local funding if a school has low scores on standardized tests or for any other reason a future legislature may allow?”

Unfortunately, Sen. Fort’s truthful version of the proposal will not be on the ballot. So that is our task— getting the word out so that people won’t be hoodwinked into voting for a measure that would do precisely the opposite of what is being marketed. In Georgia, we have to spread the word that when people are confronted with some tricky wording that “sounds good” called Amendment #1, the only responsible vote is NO! That is our job in the next 65 days, with early voting starting only a month from now. It is a daunting task but we have good allies, and the The State of Things in Georgia — Vote No on Amendment #1. - Network For Public Education:

 

Parents Across America Group Outlines Ed-Tech 'Threats' - Education Week

Parents Across America Group Outlines Ed-Tech 'Threats' - Education Week:

Parents Across America Group Outlines Ed-Tech 'Threats'

An influential parent-advocacy group that has vocally opposed high-stakes testing, the Common Core State Standards, and charter school expansion has its sights on a new target: education technology.

Parents Across America, a nonprofit group with 44 chapters across 25 states, last month issued a set of resources warning of the "threats" posed by the explosion of digital- and online-technology use in schools, including rising screen time for children, increased testing and data collection, and what the group views as misguided teaching strategies based on low-quality digital products.

Although the group says it supports "appropriate" use of technology in schools, its recommendations include such controversial suggestions as "no in-school screen time before 3rd grade" and "no 1-to-1 devices before high school."

Roughly half of American K-12 students now have access to their own school-issued mobile-computing devices, according to FutureSource Consulting, a United Kingdom-based research group. A nationwide 2015 poll of parents commissioned by the nonprofit Data Quality Campaign (which advocates greater data use in schools), meanwhile, found that parents overwhelmingly want access to information on such issues as their children's academic performance and safety.

Some prominent research and children's-media groups see Parents Across America's stance as alarmist. They express concern that the group is giving renewed attention to some questionable research, including one widely discredited study calling for no screen time at all for children younger than 12.

Parents are "absolutely right to call into question many of the overheated claims for ed tech's benefits," said Michael Levine, the executive director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, a New York City-based research center. But, Levine said, "all screens are not created equal. There is a huge difference between video chatting with grandma and being left alone to play first-person-shooter games."

Julie Woestehoff, Parents Across America’s interim executive director.

Launched in 2010, Parents Across America is run on a small annual budget, with funding provided in part by a foundation associated with the Chicago Teachers Union. Despite its size and lack of structure, the group and some of its leaders have had a big impact: The standardized-testing opt-out movement they have helped support has gained considerable traction in recent years, and parent-activist concerns about student-data privacy played a huge role in the demise of inBloom, a massive student-data-warehouse project started with $100 million in support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York (both of which provide support to Education Week).

Julie Woestehoff, who has a 3-year-old grandson and a history of parent activism datingParents Across America Group Outlines Ed-Tech 'Threats' - Education Week: 

Alfie Kohn: Why Punishment Won't Stop a Bully - Education Week

Why Punishment Won't Stop a Bully - Education Week:

Why Punishment Won't Stop a Bully

Punitive discipline for bullies can be counterproductive

Bullying at school has attracted an enormous amount of attention, spurring academic studies and popular books, regulations, and training sessions for educators. By now its status as a serious problem is widely acknowledged, as it should be. We can never go back to the days when bullying was regarded as a boys-will-be-boys rite of passage, something that victims were left to deal with (and suffer from) alone.

But as with other ills, both within and beyond our schools, some responses are much less constructive than others. The least thoughtful (or useful) strategy is to announce a "zero tolerance" stance on bullying. Either this phrase amounts to empty rhetoric—rather like responding to repeated instances of gun violence in our country by sending each cluster of victims our "thoughts and prayers"—or else it refers to a policy of harsh punishment for bullies.

The latter approach is worth our attention precisely because it comes so easily to us, complementing a punitive sensibility already well-established in our schools. Students who break the rules or otherwise displease us are subjected to suspension, expulsion, detention, enforced isolation ("time-out"), loss of opportunity to participate in enjoyable activities, and so on.

—André Da Loba

Making children suffer for what they've done is often defended on practical grounds, but I've been unable to find any evidence to support the claim that punishment makes schools safer or leads the children who have been punished to become more ethical or responsible. Indeed, punitive responses—even if they're euphemistically called "consequences"—are often not merely ineffective but actively counterproductive. To cite only one in a long line of empirical investigations, an eight-year longitudinal study published in 2005 found that punitive discipline was subsequently associated with more antisocial behavior, less prosocial behavior, and increased levels of anxiety.

Interestingly, when many proponents of traditional discipline are presented with such evidence, they simply pivot to a very different defense, one that can't be dislodged with evidence: They insist that if someone does something bad, something bad must be done to that person. He or she must be "held accountable"; a consequence must be imposed for moral reasons, even if there are no practical benefits.

But the effects of punishment do matter, and where bullying is concerned, they suggest a painful irony: Punishing kids who bully not only fails to address the source of the problem, but actually makes things worse. As educator and author Barbara Coloroso pointed out in her book The Bully, The Bullied, and the Bystander, punishment teaches the bully "to be more aggressive and hurtful. He will undoubtedly master the art of doing his bullying in ways that are sneaky or 'under the radar' of even the most observant and aware adults. More important," she adds, "punishment degrades, humiliates, and dehumanizes the children who are its objects. (Sounds like bullying to me.)"

"Punishment in general is likely a hidden contributor to bullying, both because of what it models and because of its effects on the students who are punished."

Decades' worth of research shows that punishment—even when it doesn't include physical force—promotes aggression. But studies conducted in the United States and in Sweden revealed another layer to that reality: Bullies in particular are more likely to have been raised by authoritarian parents who rely on punishment. Dan Olweus, a leading authority on the subject, conducted the latter study. He, like other critics of punishment, has offered suggestions for what can curb bullying. The key is to "restructure the social environment"—the entire school culture—rather than trying to target individual students by encouraging intervention by bystanders, offering advice to potential victims, or, worst of all, punishing bullies.

It's easy to assume that punitive discipline is an inevitable part of school life. That Why Punishment Won't Stop a Bully - Education Week:

An Effective but Exhausting Alternative to High School Suspensions - The New York Times

An Effective but Exhausting Alternative to High School Suspensions - The New York Times:

An Effective but Exhausting Alternative to High School Suspensions

When kids get into trouble at school, traditional forms of discipline often lead to more trouble. Is there a more productive way to change behavior?

n December 2013, Colleen Walsh, a social-studies teacher at Leadership and Public Service High School in Manhattan’s Financial District, called one of the school’s four deans in charge of discipline. She had just had a short, heated dispute in the hallway with a 17-year-old student who had his cellphone out, a violation of school rules. Walsh, then 27, was an energetic teacher, entertaining and assertive, but something about the way she spoke to the young man, who was not her student, infuriated him. A junior who could be exceptionally charming but also combative, he started yelling at Walsh, at which point she contacted a dean in the hope that he could calm him so they could all discuss what had happened.

Leadership is housed in a tall, narrow building originally intended as office space, with revolving doors at the entrance and an echoing lobby. That day in December, the student had already taken the elevator down to the lobby after the confrontation when he encountered the dean, who, misunderstanding Walsh’s intent, imposed a punishment instead. He told the young man, who was on the school’s basketball team, that he could not play in that evening’s game and that he would also be suspended, because this infraction came on the heels of several others. The student (who declined to comment for this article), now even more irate, took the elevator back to the ninth floor. He burst through the door of Walsh’s classroom, where three students had lingered after class, and faced her, yelling, cursing, accusing her of lying, ignoring Walsh’s repeated requests that he leave the room. Friends tried to pull him toward the door, but he broke away, then hurled over one of the classroom’s chair-desks. They finally succeeded in pulling him out of the classroom, at which point a dean arrived.

Some kind of consequence was clearly in order, the deans and the principal, Phil Santos, agreed. The question was: What would it be?

For the past two decades, how to discipline students has been as hotly contested a subject as how to educate them. For much of that time, many public-school systems, including New York City’s, have enforced zero-tolerance policies that require mandatory suspensions for certain offenses. Originally generated in response to fears about weapons in schools, zero-tolerance policies, especially in New York, where Rudolph W. Giuliani’s “broken windows” theory had taken hold, signaled to educators that crackdowns on unruliness of all kinds were in order. Between 1999 and 2009, the number of student suspensions in New York nearly doubled, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union, reaching about 450,000 suspensions over the course of the decade. In that era, infractions that once might have merited a call home, like shoving another student or cursing, were increasingly common grounds for suspension.

The broad implementation of punitive suspension policies gave researchers ample data, the analysis of which has yielded a body of work suggesting the failure of this experiment in discipline. Suspensions do not deter bad behavior, numerous studies have found, and most likely feed it by alienating students from the school community. Other studies show that suspensions are not just ineffective but inequitable, as students of color are more likely than white ones to be suspended for the same behaviors. In New York City, black students made up only 30 percent of all students from 1999 to 2009 but accounted for 50 percent of the suspensions, according to a N.Y.C.L.U. report. Additional studies show that a student who has been suspended is more likely to eventually drop out of school or end up in the criminal-justice system. (In New York, the heavy presence of school safety An Effective but Exhausting Alternative to High School Suspensions - The New York Times:

New evidence that summer programs can make a difference for poor children - The Washington Post

New evidence that summer programs can make a difference for poor children - The Washington Post:

New evidence that summer programs can make a difference for poor children

Rising fourth grader, Kevin Ramirez, 9, works on a self portrait during art class, part of a new summer program for low-income children in Montgomery County, Md. The program was not among those funded and studied by the Wallace Foundation. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

During their long, languid summers, lots of children forget the lessons they learned in school. But the hot empty months pose an especially big academic hurdle for poor children, whose families might not have time or money for camps or enrichment activities.

Now new research suggests that school districts can stave off the so-called summer slide by offering free, voluntary programs that mix reading and math instruction with sailing, arts and crafts and other summer staples. The research also shows, perhaps unsurprisingly, that students have to attend the programs regularly to reap the benefits.

“We would hope that these findings would encourage district leaders and others to consider whether summer programs can help them achieve their broader goals,” said Ann Stone, of the Wallace Foundation, which funded the research as part of its $50 million National Summer Learning Project.

The new findings come as many districts have sought to minimize learning loss by shortening summer vacation or moving toward year-round schooling. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) bucked that trend last week when he issued an executive order prohibiting districts from starting class before Labor Day, a move that sparked backlash from district leaders who said it could cost students academically.

[Hogan orders Md. schools to start after Labor Day]

The new study, conducted by RAND, compared the performance of third-grade students who applied to and enrolled in five district-run summer programs to the performance of third-graders who applied to those programs and did not get in.

The participating districts, which received funding from the Wallace Foundation to run their programs, were in Boston; Dallas; Duval County, Fla.; Pittsburgh; and Rochester, N.Y.

Though each ran its program differently, there were some commonalities. The programs were tuition-free and ran five days a week for at least five weeks, or 25 days; they offered free transportation and meals; they capped class size at 15; and they included at least three hours per day of math and language arts instruction.

Researchers found no long-term academic effects, on average, for all students who signed up. But that analysis included a significant number of children — about one in five — who enrolled and then never actually attended. Some of those students had left the district altogether by the time summer rolled around; others dropped out for unknown reasons.

Another portion of students — 29 percent — had low attendance, showing up for 19 or fewer days.

But half of all the students who enrolled showed up and then attended for at least 20 days. And New evidence that summer programs can make a difference for poor children - The Washington Post:

Starting a Black Parent Affinity Group at your School SF Public School Mom

Starting a Black Parent Affinity Group at your SchoolSF Public School Mom:

Starting a Black Parent Affinity Group at your School 

Parent affinity groups can have profound effects on schools. This post about my experiences starting an affinity group at my daughters’ elementary school, originally appeared on Blavity, a an online community of “the most exceptional multi-cultural creators and influencers in the world.” Blavity partners with diverse content creators and influencers to “help them reach a wider audience, amplify their message, and fund their hustles.” I am proud my work is highlighted there. Check out my article there, as well as more great content by Black millennials, artists, culture critics and entrepreneurs.

---

One Step Back, Two Steps Forward–Starting a Black Family Affinity Group at your School

Needs of underrepresented groups can get overlooked. Parent affinity groups can help.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I last spring I begun hosting a Black Family Breakfast affinity group for Black families at my daughters’ elementary school. This is part of an effort that my principal, I and a few key staff have initiated to “explore race and culture” at our school. Teachers noted last year that parents needed to be involved in the process (not just teachers and kids). As parents, we can undermine efforts of staff in creating a safe and welcoming environment for all families. That said, after several conversations with Black families at our school, we decided to get together to share ideas and resources to help make our school and even more welcoming place.

Apparently my “great idea” of bringing Black families together was not met with open arms by all staff. A few days after sending out invitations for our second meeting I learned some teachers were voicing concerns about Black parents getting together to talk about their experiences at the school (?!) This happened even at a school with an enlightened and supportive principal like mine! At this moment, I realized, there was still a LOT of work to be done in our district and at our school. Nonetheless, I’m glad I’m doing it.

What was all the hubbub about? Some staff expressed their concerns that an affinity group would be too “exclusive” and could potentially be seen as unfair by other racial and cultural groups at the school.

As a Black woman who is constantly having to navigate “white spaces”, I understand the importance of being able to “tell it like it is” and in a room full of folks who “get it.” I also understand how important it is to be able to speak about my experience without having to worry about defensive reactions of others.

With support from the principal (which is KEY) we decided to move ahead and use this incident as a “teachable moment.” The principal agreed to listen to staff concerns while still encouraging them to live with the potential discomfort that their questions stirred up. I explained to the principal that I was happy to answer any specific questions staff had, and we both agreed that if staff felt other affinity groups should be formed

Luckily, a friend of mine shared an article that proved helpful in explaining why our affinity group is so important for our families. This article is focused on setting up student affinity groups, nonetheless, I feel it also applies to parents as well:

Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Good Friday have long been on the calendar at Madeira School in McLean, Virginia; no major tests are given on those days. But it wasn’t until students in the school’s Muslim affinity group were discussing the dilemma of choosing between taking tests or attending Eid services that the lack of inclusion on the calendar became apparent.

“You really shouldn’t be having tests on a major holiday. We can communicate this up to the teachers and the administration,” math teacher and affinity group leader Jeannie Rumsey told the students. “We can find another time for you to make that up, but this is a major holiday for you and you should be able to celebrate it.” After organizing and communicating with their administration, the group succeeded in adding the major Muslim holy days to the following year’s school calendar. The dates were given the same treatment as the Christian and Jewish holidays: no tests.

This example of collective action is one of the purposes of affinity groups in schools: They allow students who share an identity—usually a marginalized identity—to gather, talk in a safe space about issues related to that identity, and transfer that discussion into action that makes for a more equitable experience at school.

(Read more here.)

Even though I experienced some initial pushback, it’s been interesting to see some positive outcomes of moving forward DESPITE the initial resistance.

First, it became very clear that YES… our teachers actually NEEDED to talk about Starting a Black Parent Affinity Group at your SchoolSF Public School Mom:

Common Core, Cuomo targeted in district’s biting back-to-school spoof - The Washington Post

Common Core, Cuomo targeted in district’s biting back-to-school spoof - The Washington Post:

Common Core, Cuomo targeted in district’s biting back-to-school spoof

 Administrators drone on and on! All their speeches cause me to yawn.

I hope somebody will pull the alarm

A fire drill won’t cause no harm.

Those lyrics come from a rather unusual back-to-school video showing staffers from the Bay Shore School District in New York performing a biting spoof at a superintendent’s conference Tuesday, the day before the opening of the 2016-17 school year.

Titled “Welcome Back Bay Shore Teachers” and written to the tune of “Summer Nights” from the “Grease” musical, the song targets the Common Core State Standards and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), and throws in a reference to the district superintendent, Joseph Bond.

As you read the lyrics, imagine an auditorium with teachers and administrators singing and dancing around with the lyrics projected on a screen on the stage. Or you can watch the videobelow.

Answer Sheet newsletter

Education questions and answers, in your inbox weekly.

Summer’s over had me a blast

Summer’s over happened so fast

Yesterday I’m in the Keys

Yesterday I was at ease

Summer’s gone

Now back to school

Oh no now

Think about Common Core

Common Core, Common Core,

Cuomo isn’t our friend

Common Core Common Core

When’s his 2nd term end?!

Governor Cuomo, sure likes to spend

He proposes cuts till the end

He struts his stuff in Albany!

Treats New York like his property!

Summer’s gone now back to school

Oh no now, how I hate Conference Day

Conference Day Conference Day,

Joe Bond seems kinda cool

Conference Day Conference Day

Not as cool as the pool!

Administrators drone on and on!

All their speeches cause me to yawn.

I hope somebody will pull the alarm

A fire drill won’t cause no harm.

Summer’s gone

Now back to school

Here come all of the Stats!

Here’s a Stat! There’s a Stat!

Oh, the numbers don’t lie.

Here’s a Stat! There’s a Stat!

Tell us what they imply.

Shoo da bop bop …

A statement published by Newsday from the school district says:

“The moment depicted in the video was a small part of a larger event celebrating the difference Bay Shore teachers make in the lives of our students. Part of that moment included a lighthearted spoof of some of the issues that are currently at the forefront in public education. The overall purpose of the moment and the event as a whole was to celebrate our schools and the lives that can be changed when an entire community comes together to support our students.”

Watch the video. It’s a hoot.Common Core, Cuomo targeted in district’s biting back-to-school spoof - The Washington Post:

Valerie Strauss covers education and runs The Answer Sheet blog.

  Follow @valeriestrauss